Systems and methods for aggregating related media content based on tagged content

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods are described for a media guidance application (e.g., implemented on a user device) that aggregates related media content, associated with media content selected by a user, by comparing keywords.

Cross-Reference To Related Applications

This application is a national stage application under 35 U.S.C. § 371of International Application PCT/US2017/066437, filed Dec. 14, 2017,which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

The amount of media available to users in any given media deliverysystem can be substantial. Users simply have no time to watch allavailable media from all available sources in order to view the specificcontent of their choosing. Moreover, if users wish to view only aportion of content (e.g., a news broadcast on a particular topic), theusers must sit through all of the content until the specific portion isshown. In particular, a user may be interested in a portion of contentand may desire to view only content specifically associated with theportion (e.g., news updates or previous developments on the particularnews topic) at a convenient time. Consequently, many users desire a formof media guidance through an interface that allows users to tag contentand efficiently navigate media selections related to the tagged content.

SUMMARY

Accordingly, systems and methods are disclosed herein for a mediaguidance application (e.g., implemented on a user device) thataggregates related media content based on content selected by a user.For example, a user may select a news story while viewing a newschannel, to receive updates about the news story. The media guidanceapplication may determine keywords that represent the news storyselected by the user, and search for news updates matching the keywords.The media guidance application may also search for past news storiesassociated with the news story selected by the user, to ultimatelygenerate an intuitive user interface (e.g., timeline) that allows theuser to access content associated with the user's selection. Generatingthe aggregated media content associated with user tagged content allowsusers to view the specific content of their choosing without having towatch all available media from all available sources. Moreover, as themedia guidance application aggregates portions of related content (e.g.,news updates and summaries) from different content sources (e.g., newschannels), users no longer need to sit through an entire media assetuntil the specific portion that the users wish to view is shown.Likewise, users no longer need to manually search for old portions ofcontent (e.g., past news reports) associated with the particular topicof interest.

Consider a situation in which a user is viewing a news report about abank robbery on FOX News. Based on his/her interest, the user may chooseto tag the story via the media guidance application. The media guidanceapplication may receive a first user selection of a first media contentobject. The first media content object may be the video stream of thenews report. The media guidance application may also receive an optionrepresenting a type of information update related to the first mediacontent object. For example, the media guidance application may receivean option such as police investigations or court cases. This type ofinformation update may represent an aspect of the story that the user isinterested in (e.g., police investigations may deal with crime sceneanalysis and court cases may deal with any court matters once the robberis caught).

The media guidance application may extract a first plurality of keywordsassociated with the first media content object and that corresponds tothe type of information update. For example, the first plurality ofkeywords may be extracted by the media guidance application from themetadata of the media content object (e.g., video of news story),subtitles, audio, and text on the screen. The keywords may include“robber,” “Citibank,” “stolen,” “Manhattan,” “Broadway,” “October,”“money,” etc.

The media guidance application may measure a time period since a releasetime of the first media content object. In response to determining thatthe time period exceeds an update period associated with the type ofinformation, the media guidance application may monitor a plurality ofcontent sources for a second media content object that is associatedwith a second plurality of keywords that includes some of the firstplurality of keywords. For example, the media guidance application maydetermine that the media content object (e.g., video of news story) wasbroadcasted on FOX News on Monday Oct. 16, 2017 at 5:00 pm. Based on thetype of information update, the media guidance application may set anupdate period. Suppose that the type of information update is associatedwith court cases. The media guidance application may set the updateperiod to every three months because court case developments are notfrequent. The media guidance application may measure a time period sincethe release time of the first media content object (e.g., Oct. 16, 2017at 5:00 pm) and after three months (e.g., Jan. 16, 2018 at 5:00 pm)determine that the time period exceeds the update period. The mediaguidance application may then monitor a plurality of content sources(e.g., news channels) for a second media content object (e.g., video ofa news story update). The media guidance application may extract asecond plurality of keywords from the second media content object. Thesekeywords may include “robber,” “Manhattan,” “Broadway,” “Citibank,”“October,” “trial,” “judge,” and “guilty.” The second plurality ofkeywords may include some of the first plurality of keywords. In thisexample, the media guidance application may determine that “robber,”“Manhattan,” “Broadway,” “Citibank,” and “October” appear in bothpluralities of keywords.

In response to determining that an amount of the first plurality ofkeywords included in the second plurality of keywords is less than athreshold, the media guidance application may store the second mediacontent object, wherein the threshold represents media content objectswith common subject matter updated with new information. The thresholdmay be a quantitative or qualitative value that is used to determinewhether the second media content object offers new information, or istoo similar to the first media content object. For example, the mediaguidance application may set the threshold to be a percentage of similarkeywords (e.g., 60%). Upon determining that the second media object hascommon subject matter, the media guidance application may note that outof 10 unique words, the two pluralities share five keywords (e.g., 50%).The media guidance application may determine that this value is lessthan the threshold. Thus, the media guidance application may store thesecond media content object.

In some aspects, the media guidance application may receive a first userselection of a first media content object. Suppose that the user isviewing a news report on CNN News about Hurricane Maria hitting PuertoRico. The media guidance application may allow the user to tag thestory. Based on his/her interest, the user may end up tagging the story.The media guidance application may receive these selections associatedwith the first media content object (e.g., video clip of the newsstory).

Based on a type associated with the first media content object, themedia guidance application may generate for display a plurality ofoptions, each representing an aspect of subject matter of the firstmedia content object. For example, the media guidance application maygenerate, for display, types of information updates such as economiceffects, political aftermath, and social impact. Each type ofinformation update is associated with a unique theme. Furthermore, eachoption may be associated with a set of keywords predetermined by themedia guidance application. For example, economic effects may deal withthe impact of the hurricane on businesses and trade. Associated keywordsof economic effects may include “economy,” “business,” “money,” etc.Political aftermath may encompass politicians and laws associated withthe hurricane. Associated keywords of political aftermath may include“Donald Trump,” “President,” “laws,” “government,” etc. Social impactmay encompass donation efforts, relief, and recovery updates of variouscommunities. Associated keywords of social impact may be “rescue,”“community,” “donation,” “families,” etc.

In some embodiments, the first media content object is a news storyabout a criminal investigation, wherein the first option is associatedwith a first aspect of subject matter, wherein a second option of theplurality of options is associated with a second aspect of subjectmatter. For example, the first aspect of subject matter representscontent related to a victim of the criminal investigation, and thesecond aspect of subject matter represents content related to a trial ofa suspect of the criminal investigation.

In response to receiving a second user selection of a first of theplurality of options, the media guidance application may extract, inaccordance with the selected first option, a first plurality of keywordsassociated with the first media content object. For example, the usermay select the social impact option. In response, the media guidanceapplication may begin the process of extracting keywords from the mediacontent object.

The media guidance application may extract keywords in different ways.For example, the media guidance application may retrieve, from thecontent provider/source, metadata associated with the media contentobject, to determine keywords. The media guidance application may alsoextract subtitles from the media content object. The media guidanceapplication may utilize natural language processing and speechrecognition to determine text from audio associated with the mediacontent object. The media guidance application may also utilize computervision processes (e.g., segmentation, edge detection) to identifyobjects on the screen. For example, the media guidance application mayidentify images of the hurricane on the screen and classify “hurricane”as a keyword. Similarly, the media guidance application may parse imagesof text on the screen such as “Breaking News: Hurricane Maria hitsPuerto Rico,” convert to text, and classify “Hurricane Maria” and“Puerto Rico” as keywords. Suppose that the media guidance applicationutilizes all methods listed above to extract keywords. The firstplurality of keywords, as determined by the media guidance application,may thus include “Hurricane Maria,” “Puerto Rico,” “hurricane,”“devastating,” and “damage.”

The media guidance application may then identify an update periodassociated with the selected first option. Options may be associatedwith update periods (e.g., unit of time) based on the frequency ofoccurrences of updates in an option. For example, suppose the mediaguidance application provides three options: economic effects, politicalaftermath, and social impact. Economic effects, the first option, mayhave a monthly update period. This is because changes in the economy maybe slow and long term. Political aftermath, the second option, may havean update period of five hours. This may be to track political pressconferences and statements. Social impact, the third option, may have anhourly update period. This is because stories of rescue missions,donations, and relief efforts occur frequently after a natural disaster.Based on the user's selected option, social impact, the media guidanceapplication may set the update period associated with the first mediacontent object as hourly.

The media guidance application may measure a time period since a releasetime of the first media content object. The release time is the time atwhich the first media content object was transmitted by the contentprovider. For example, the release time for a news broadcast aboutHurricane Maria hitting Puerto Rico may be Oct. 2, 2017 at 5:00 pm.Suppose that the user chooses to tag the news broadcast. The mediaguidance application may identify the news broadcast video clip as thefirst media content object and begin measuring time from the releasetime (e.g., incrementing by a unit of time).

In response to determining that the time period exceeds the updateperiod, the media guidance application may simultaneously monitor aplurality of content sources for a second media content object that isassociated with a second plurality of keywords that includes some of thefirst plurality of keywords. The media guidance application may comparethe measured time period with the update period whenever the mediaguidance application increments the time period (e.g., every minute). Inthis case, for example, the media guidance application may determinethat the time period exceeds the update period at 6:00 pm on Oct. 2,2017 because the update period is hourly. The media guidance applicationthen may reset the measured time period and restart the measuringprocess.

The media guidance application may extract the second plurality ofkeywords associated with the second media content object. Suppose thatat 6:00 pm, the media guidance application monitors and detects a secondmedia content object. The media guidance application may extract asecond plurality of keywords from the second media content object. Thesekeywords, as determined by the media guidance application using computervision and natural language processing, may include “Hurricane Maria,”“Puerto Rico,” “rescue,” “citizen,” and “damage.”

In response to determining that an amount of the first plurality ofkeywords included in the second plurality of keywords is less than athreshold, the media guidance application may store the second mediacontent object, wherein the threshold represents media content objectswith common subject matter updated with new information. The mediaguidance application may first determine whether the second mediacontent object has common subject matter with the first media contentobject. In some embodiments, the threshold may have an upper level and alower level. The upper level represents the maximum allowable amount ofthe first plurality of keywords that can be included in the secondplurality of keywords. In contrast, the lower level represents theminimum allowable amount of the first plurality of keywords that can beincluded in the second plurality of keywords. An allowable amount is theamount that the media guidance application determines sufficient forstoring a media content object.

The media guidance application may determine that the second mediacontent object has common subject matter with the first media contentobject if the lower level of the threshold is met. For example, thefirst plurality of keywords may include “Hurricane Maria,” “PuertoRico,” “hurricane,” “devastating,” and “damage.” The second plurality ofkeywords may include “Hurricane Maria,” “Puerto Rico,” “rescue,”“citizen,” and “damage.” Collectively, both pluralities contain sevenunique words. The second plurality of keywords shares three words withthe first plurality of keywords. In this example, the media guidanceapplication may set the lower level of the threshold to 30%. In order tobe considered common subject matter with the first media content object,the media guidance application therefore requires at least 30% of thewords to be shared with the first plurality of keywords. In this case,60% of the second plurality of keywords are also included in the firstplurality of keywords. Based on this, the media guidance application maydetermine that the second media content object has common subject matterwith the first media content object.

In response to determining that the second media content object hascommon subject matter with the first media content object, the mediaguidance application may determine that the second plurality of keywordsalso satisfies the upper level of the threshold. The media guidanceapplication may set the upper level to 80%. Therefore, if the secondplurality of keywords shares 80% of its keywords with the firstplurality of keywords, the media guidance application may determine notto store the second media content object (e.g., the second media contentobject is too similar to the first media content object and may be thesame news story). In the example given, the shared keywords in thesecond plurality of keywords only account for 60% of the total keywordsin the second plurality. Therefore, the media guidance application maydetermine that the second plurality of keywords satisfies the upperlevel of the threshold.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determinewhether the second plurality of keywords corresponds to the optionkeywords. As discussed previously, option keywords are predetermined bythe media guidance application and are associated with the user selectedoptions (generated by the media guidance application). Option keywordsmay be words that universally describe a topic. For example, the topicof social impact may be associated with option keywords such as“rescue,” “community,” “citizen,” “families,” etc. The media guidanceapplication may analyze media on the Internet associated with a “socialimpact” theme in order to derive these option keywords. The mediaguidance application may set an option threshold which represents theminimum amount of option keywords that need to be included in the secondplurality of keywords. Suppose that the media guidance applicationdetermines that the second media content object is a unique follow-upvideo clip of the user's tagged video clip (e.g., news update toHurricane Maria news story). If the media guidance applicationdetermines that the second plurality of keywords does not satisfy theoption threshold, the media guidance application may not store thesecond media content object because the second media content object isnot associated with the user's selected option. For example, the mediaguidance application may set the option threshold to 15%. If the secondplurality of keywords includes “Hurricane Maria,” “Puerto Rico,”“rescue,” “citizen,” and “damage,” the media guidance application maydetermine that “rescue” and “citizen” are option keywords of the option,social impact.

Upon determining that the second plurality of keywords satisfies thelower, upper, and option thresholds, the media guidance application maystore the second media content object in memory. This signifies that thesecond media content object (e.g., video clip) covers the same storythat the user wished to tag (e.g., contained in first media contentobject). Furthermore, the second media content object is unique and addsadditional information to the story. Lastly, the second media contentobject corresponds to the information type requested by the user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may search theplurality of content sources for media content objects that include lessthan all of the first plurality of keywords and that are associated witha release time that precedes the first time. The release time is thetime a media content object is transmitted by a content provider. Forexample, the content provider may be FOX. The media content object maybe a story segment on FOX News which is transmitted on FOX. Suppose thatthe first time the user selects a first media content object is onMonday, Oct. 9, 2017. The media guidance application may search formedia content objects with release times before the first time on theInternet or databases of stored media from the content provider. Forexample, the media guidance application may retrieve previous newsstories related to Hurricane Maria from the FOX News website.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application receives, as thefirst user selection, input from a user tagging a news story ofinterest. The media guidance application may generate keywordsassociated with the news story and categorize the keywords into aplurality of categories. For example, the media guidance application mayreceive a user selection to tag a news story about Hurricane Maria. Themedia guidance application may generate, using computer vision andnatural language models, keywords associated with the news story such as“Hurricane Maria,” “hurricane,” “Puerto Rico,” “rescue,” “family,”“house,” “girl,” etc. The media guidance application may categorize thekeywords using data analytics processing (e.g., clustering,classification), to determine a plurality of categories. The pluralityof categories represents recurring themes or concepts. In someembodiments, the media guidance application may transcribe the newsreport and analyze all words to generate the plurality of categories.Suppose that the plurality of categories includes “devastation,” “socialimpact,” and “rescues.” These categories represent a classification ofthe news report. Thus, the news report can be a part of stories aboutdevastation, rescues and social impact. The media guidance applicationmay compare each of the plurality of categories to the aspect of subjectmatter corresponding to the first option. Revisiting the previousexample, the first option is associated with social impact. The mediaguidance application may compare the term “social impact” with eachcategory in the plurality of categories. The media guidance applicationmay then identify the first plurality of keywords in response todetermining that a category associated with each of the first pluralityof keywords corresponds to the aspect of subject matter. For example,the media guidance application may determine the first optioncorresponds to the category “social impact.” In response, the mediaguidance application may identify the generated keywords as the firstplurality of keywords.

In some embodiments, in response to determining that the amount of thefirst plurality of keywords included in the second plurality of keywordsis less than the threshold, the media guidance application may determinea type of update associated with the second media content object. Forexample, the media guidance application may determine that the secondplurality of keywords shares common subject matter with the firstplurality of keywords, and is unique because the second plurality ofkeywords contains an amount of the first plurality of keywords that isless than the threshold. The media guidance application may select analert type based on the type of update. For example, the media guidanceapplication may create an overlay that informs that user that a secondmedia content object has been detected and allows the user to access thesecond media content object. In some embodiments, the media guidanceapplication may generate a media playlist by combining the first mediacontent object and the second media content object. The media guidanceapplication may generate a timely alert (e.g., daily, weekly, monthly)by therefore aggregating all detected media content objects in a listand displaying the list to the user in chronological order.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine acurrent season of a show in which the user has expressed interest. Themedia guidance application may refer to a user profile associated withthe user to determine a viewing schedule. The viewing schedule mayindicate a show that the user views on a regular basis. For example, theuser may watch “Game of Thrones.” The media guidance application mayextract metadata associated with “Game of Thrones” from the viewinghistory of the user. The metadata may indicate that the user is viewingseason 7 of the show. The media guidance application may retrieveinformation associated with “Game of Thrones” from the Internet, such asthe current season. Suppose that the user determines that the currentseason is 7. The media guidance application may determine that the useris viewing episodes from the current season. The media guidanceapplication may then determine an end time of the current season. Forexample, the media guidance application may determine, using theInternet, that the current season has two episodes remaining and thatthe final episode of the season will be broadcasted on Sunday Aug. 27,2017. In response, the media guidance application may delay notifyingthe user about the second media content object until the end time of thecurrent season. For example, the media guidance application may generatean alert using the alert type immediately after the broadcast of thefinal episode of the current season, or at a set time after the finalepisode (e.g, one hour after, one day later, etc.). The user may set thealert frequency, alert type, and alert schedule in his/her user profile.

The media guidance application may monitor the plurality of contentsources for a third media content object that is associated with a thirdplurality of keywords that includes some of the first and secondplurality of keywords. For example, the media guidance application maydetect a third news story pertaining to Hurricane Maria about a roof ofa hospital being blown away. The media guidance application maydetermine that the third plurality of keywords include “HurricaneMaria,” “hurricane,” “roof,” “hospital,” “patients,” and “evacuation.”As seen in the previous examples, the first and second pluralities ofkeywords include “Hurricane Maria” and “hurricane.”

Suppose that the threshold for an amount of matching keywords in eachplurality of keywords is 80%. The media guidance application maydetermine that only two words of the third plurality of keywords arealso in the first and second pluralities of keywords. The two wordsaccount for 33% of the third plurality of keywords. The media guidanceapplication may therefore determine that an amount of the first andsecond plurality of keywords included in the third plurality of keywordsis less than the threshold and may store the third media content object.The media guidance application may also identify times associated witheach of the first, second and third media content objects. The timesassociated with each of the media content objects may be the times oftransmission from the content provider and may be retrieved, by themedia guidance application, from the Internet or media content objectmetadata. For example, the first, second and third media content objectsmay have been transmitted on a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on FOX Newsat 8:00 pm, respectively. The media guidance application may thengenerate, for display, a timeline representing the identified times andthe first, second, and third media content objects, wherein the timelineincludes indicators of types of updates associated with the first,second and third media content objects. The user can therefore accesseach news story in an efficient interface sorted by broadcast time.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine acharacteristic of the first media content object and generate arecommendation of a media asset associated with the characteristic. Thecharacteristic may be a theme associated with the first media content.For example, a characteristic can be “criminal activity,” “weatheralert,” “natural disaster,” “sports event,” etc. For example, the mediaguidance application may determine, based on the keywords associatedwith the first media content object, that the characteristic is “naturaldisaster” because the keywords include references to Hurricane Maria, anatural disaster. The media guidance application may then recommendother news stories about similar events (e.g., natural disasters) suchas earthquakes and tornados.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may search a firstplurality of previous release times associated with a first set ofcontent corresponding to a first aspect of subject matter. For example,the first aspect of the subject matter may be the social impact ofHurricane Maria. The first set of content may therefore include newsstories about the hurricane's social effect on Puerto Rico andcommunities attempting to heal. The first plurality of previous releasetimes may be associated with each respective story (e.g., the first newsstory has a first release time, the second news story has a secondrelease time, etc.). The media guidance application may determine afirst average duration between each of the first plurality of previousrelease times. Suppose that the first story has a release time of 9:00pm on Monday and the second story has a release time of 9:00 pm on thefollowing Tuesday. The media guidance application may determine thatthere are 24 hours between these two release times. The media guidanceapplication may then determine the amount of time between the secondrelease time and a third release time. This process may continue untilall media content objects in the first set of content are accounted for.The media guidance application may then determine the average durationbetween all release times.

The media guidance application may further store the first averageduration, as a first value for a first update period associated with thefirst aspect of subject matter. For example, the media guidanceapplication may store 24 hours as the update period for contentassociated with Hurricane Maria's aftermath if the average durationbetween release times is 24 hours. This represents the amount of timethe media guidance application waits before monitoring for an additionalmedia content object. The media guidance application may then search asecond plurality of previous release times associated with a second setof content corresponding to a second aspect of subject matter. The mediaguidance application may also determine a second average durationbetween each of the second plurality of previous release times, andstore the second duration, as a second value for a second update periodassociated with the second aspect of subject matter. For example, themedia guidance application may repeat the process of determining anaverage duration between release times for a second aspect of subjectmatter such as the effect of Hurricane Maria on the economy. Sinceeconomic effects are not always immediate, the media guidanceapplication may determine a greater average duration between theserelease times. In fact, it is possible that the media guidanceapplication may determine that the second release time pertaining to theeconomic effect of Hurricane Maria is one month after the first releasetime. The media guidance application may then select one of the firstand second update periods as the identified update period, based on theaspect of subject matter corresponding to the selected first option. Inthe example previously given, the user selects the social impact option.Therefore, the update period may be set according to the first aspect ofsubject matter, which is associated with the social impact of HurricaneMaria.

It should be noted that the systems, methods, apparatuses, and/oraspects described above may be applied to, or used in accordance with,other systems, methods, apparatuses, and/or aspects described in thisdisclosure.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and other objects and advantages of the disclosure will beapparent upon consideration of the following detailed description, takenin conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like referencecharacters refer to like parts throughout, and in which:

FIG. 1 is an illustrative example of a display screen that allows theuser to tag a first media content object and select an optionrepresenting an aspect of subject matter of the first media contentobject, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 2 is an illustrative example of a display screen that alerts theuser of a second media content object that has been stored, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 3 is an illustrative example of a display screen presenting atimeline of four media content objects ordered based on their respectiverelease times, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIGS. 4 and 5 show illustrative examples of display screens generated bya media guidance application in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure;

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of an illustrative user equipment device inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of an illustrative media system in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of an illustrative process for aggregating relatedmedia content based on a first user selection, in accordance with someembodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of a detailed illustrative process for aggregatingrelated media content based on a first user selection, in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure

FIG. 10 is a flowchart of a detailed illustrative process fordetermining that the second media content object shares common subjectmatter with the first media content object, in accordance with someembodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 11 is a flowchart of a detailed illustrative process forgenerating, for display, a timeline representing identified times ofstored media content objects, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure;

FIG. 12 is a flowchart of a detailed illustrative process fordetermining an update period for a selected option, in accordance withsome embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 13 is a flowchart of a detailed illustrative process for generatinga media playlist and alerting the user of stored media content objects,in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 14 is a flowchart of a detailed illustrative process for searchingfor media content objects that have release times that precede the timeof the first user selection, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure;

FIG. 15 is a flowchart of a detailed illustrative process for delayingnotifying the user about the second media content object until the endtime of a current season, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure; and

FIG. 16 is a flowchart of a detailed illustrative process for generatinga recommendation of a media asset associated with a characteristic ofthe first media content object, in accordance with some embodiments ofthe disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Systems and methods are disclosed herein for a media guidanceapplication (e.g., implemented on a user device) that aggregates relatedmedia content based on content selected by a user. For example, a usermay select a news story while viewing a news channel, to receive updatesabout the news story. The media guidance application may determinekeywords that represent the news story selected by the user, and searchfor news updates by comparing keywords. The media guidance applicationmay also search for past news stories associated with the news storyselected by the user, to ultimately generate an intuitive user interface(e.g., timeline) that allows the user to access content associated withthe user's selection. Generating the aggregated media content associatedwith user tagged content allows users to view the specific content oftheir choosing without having to watch all available media from allavailable sources.

The amount of content available to users in any given content deliverysystem can be substantial. Consequently, many users desire a form ofmedia guidance through an interface that allows users to efficientlynavigate content selections and easily identify content that they maydesire. An application that provides such guidance is referred to hereinas an interactive media guidance application or, sometimes, a mediaguidance application or a guidance application.

Interactive media guidance applications may take various forms dependingon the content for which they provide guidance. One typical type ofmedia guidance application is an interactive television program guide.Interactive television program guides (sometimes referred to aselectronic program guides) are well-known guidance applications that,among other things, allow users to navigate among and locate many typesof content or media assets. Interactive media guidance applications maygenerate graphical user interface screens that enable a user to navigateamong, locate and select content. As referred to herein, the terms“media asset” and “content” should be understood to mean anelectronically consumable user asset, such as television programming, aswell as pay-per-view programs, on-demand programs (as in video-on-demand(VOD) systems), Internet content (e.g., streaming content, downloadablecontent, Webcasts, etc.), video clips, audio, content information,pictures, rotating images, documents, playlists, websites, articles,books, electronic books, blogs, chat sessions, social media,applications, games, and/or any other media or multimedia and/orcombination of the same. Guidance applications also allow users tonavigate among and locate content. As referred to herein, the term“multimedia” should be understood to mean content that utilizes at leasttwo different content forms described above, for example, text, audio,images, video, or interactivity content forms. Content may be recorded,played, displayed or accessed by user equipment devices, but can also bepart of a live performance.

The media guidance application and/or any instructions for performingany of the embodiments discussed herein may be encoded on computerreadable media. Computer readable media includes any media capable ofstoring data. The computer readable media may be transitory, including,but not limited to, propagating electrical or electromagnetic signals,or may be non-transitory including, but not limited to, volatile andnon-volatile computer memory or storage devices such as a hard disk,floppy disk, USB drive, DVD, CD, media cards, register memory, processorcaches, Random Access Memory (“RAM”), etc.

With the advent of the Internet, mobile computing, and high-speedwireless networks, users are accessing media on user equipment deviceson which they traditionally did not. As referred to herein, the phrase“user equipment device,” “user equipment,” “user device,” “electronicdevice,” “electronic equipment,” “media equipment device,” or “mediadevice” should be understood to mean any device for accessing thecontent described above, such as a television, a Smart TV, a set-topbox, an integrated receiver decoder (IRD) for handling satellitetelevision, a digital storage device, a digital media receiver (DMR), adigital media adapter (DMA), a streaming media device, a DVD player, aDVD recorder, a connected DVD, a local media server, a BLU-RAY player, aBLU-RAY recorder, a personal computer (PC), a laptop computer, a tabletcomputer, a WebTV box, a personal computer television (PC/TV), a PCmedia server, a PC media center, a hand-held computer, a stationarytelephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile telephone, aportable video player, a portable music player, a portable gamingmachine, a smart phone, or any other television equipment, computingequipment, or wireless device, and/or combination of the same. In someembodiments, the user equipment device may have a front facing screenand a rear facing screen, multiple front screens, or multiple angledscreens. In some embodiments, the user equipment device may have a frontfacing camera and/or a rear facing camera. On these user equipmentdevices, users may be able to navigate among and locate the same contentavailable through a television. Consequently, media guidance may beavailable on these devices, as well. The guidance provided may be forcontent available only through a television, for content available onlythrough one or more of other types of user equipment devices, or forcontent available both through a television and one or more of the othertypes of user equipment devices. The media guidance applications may beprovided as on-line applications (i.e., provided on a web-site), or asstand-alone applications or clients on user equipment devices. Variousdevices and platforms that may implement media guidance applications aredescribed in more detail below.

One of the functions of the media guidance application is to providemedia guidance data to users. As referred to herein, the phrase “mediaguidance data” or “guidance data” should be understood to mean any datarelated to content or data used in operating the guidance application.For example, the guidance data may include program information, guidanceapplication settings, user preferences, user profile information, medialistings, media-related information (e.g., broadcast times, broadcastchannels, titles, descriptions, ratings information (e.g., parentalcontrol ratings, critic's ratings, etc.), genre or category information,actor information, logo data for broadcasters' or providers' logos,etc.), media format (e.g., standard definition, high definition, 3D,etc.), on-demand information, blogs, websites, and any other type ofguidance data that is helpful for a user to navigate among and locatedesired content selections.

Suppose that a user is viewing a news report about a bank robbery on CNNNews. Based on his/her interest, the user may choose to select (e.g.,tag) the story via the media guidance application. Upon receiving arequest to tag the news story the user is currently watching, the mediaguidance application may identify (e.g., via control circuitry 604(discussed in FIG. 6 description)) the video clip of the news story asthe first media content object. A media content object (also referred toas “media object”) may be any media that presents information to a user(e.g., video, audio, text, game, etc.).

The media guidance application may then initiate a process to determinea class of the first media content object, wherein the class of themedia content object represents the general topic of the media contentobject. For example, news reports about robberies, murders, and assaultmay share the class “criminal activity.” The media guidance applicationmay extract metadata associated with the first media content object. Forexample, each media content object may be transmitted from the mediaguidance source 716 (discussed in FIG. 7 description) and the respectivemetadata may be transmitted from the media guidance data source 718(discussed in FIG. 7 description). The metadata may include informationsuch as title, transmission time, content provider, genre, description,media type, etc. The media guidance application may determine (e.g., viacontrol circuitry 604 (discussed in FIG. 6 description)) a class of themedia content object from the respective metadata, or subtitles, audio,and visuals that may be associated with the media content object. Inthis case, the description of the media content object may indicate thatthe media content object is a news story about a bank robbery thathappened in New York City. Accordingly, the media guidance applicationmay classify (e.g., via control circuitry 604 (discussed in FIG. 6description)) the first media content object under the class “criminalactivity.”

Classifying the first media content object may involve various mediaprocessing methods (e.g., speech recognition, computer vision, etc.).For example, the media guidance application may utilize speechrecognition to transcribe the audio of the news reporter or extractwords from the subtitles associated with the video clip. In response,the media guidance application may analyze the transcription usingnatural language processing and data analytics (e.g., word count,clustering, classification) to determine a first plurality of keywordsthat best describe the media content object. Keywords may be words thatare frequently mentioned in the media content object or are marked withhigh importance (e.g., words that appear in the title or in thedescription of the metadata). In addition, the media guidanceapplication may utilize computer vision to identify words on the framesof the media content object.

Upon determining the first plurality of keywords, the media guidanceapplication may refer to a class database in storage 608 (discussed inFIG. 6 description) that includes information about various classes andtheir associated keywords. The media guidance application may thendetermine whether the keywords in the first plurality of keywords areincluded in the class database. In response to determining that part/allof the first plurality of keywords is in the class database, the mediaguidance application may identify the class that a majority of theextract keywords are associated with. For example, the first pluralityof keywords, as determined by the media guidance application (e.g., viacontrol circuitry 604 (discussed in FIG. 6 description), may include“Manhattan,” “bank,” “robbery,” “money,” “gun,” “camera,” etc. The mediaguidance application may determine that four of the six keywords arefound in the class “criminal activity.” Therefore, the media guidanceapplication may determine that the class of the first media contentobject is “criminal activity.”

Furthermore, the class database may also include options with aspects ofsubject matter. These options allow the user to focus on a specificaspect of the media content object. Therefore, all news updates that themedia guidance application stores are tailored to the user's preference.For example, the class “criminal activity” may be associated withaspects of subject matter such as police investigations, victim updates,and court cases, as indicated by the class database. This is applicableto various media types. For example, if the media content object is asong, the media guidance application may determine that the class of thesong is the song's music genre (e.g., R&B, rap, electronic, etc.). Theaspects of subject matter may therefore include the instrumentsinvolved, the artist, the language, etc. If the user is interested inthe artist, the media guidance application may monitor for songsassociated with the artist. Upon determining the options associated withthe class of the first media content object, the media guidanceapplication may generate an overlay with various options for the user toselect.

FIG. 1 is an illustrative example of a display screen 100 that allowsthe user to tag a first media content object and select an optionrepresenting an aspect of subject matter of the first media contentobject, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure.

Overlay 102 may serve as the user input interface 610 on display 612(e.g., discussed in FIG. 6) and may provide tagging options to the user.For example, overlay 102 may include information such as the class ofthe media content object. The media guidance application may retrieve,from the metadata of the first media content object, the title of thefirst media content object. The media guidance application may alsoutilize computer vision (e.g., edge detection and classification) todetermine the title of the first media content object, based on thecontent on the screen. For example, the screen may display a bannerstating, “Breaking News: Local Bank Robbery.” The media guidanceapplication may determine that the title is “Local Bank Robbery,”because “Breaking News” is only a preamble to news updates. Overlay 102may thus include title information as well. Overlay 102 may additionallylist all options for the user that are associated with the class of thefirst media content object. For example, overlay 102 lists policeinvestigations, victim updates, court cases, similar stories, and alloptions as selectable options.

Option selector 104 is a movable marker that the user may use to choosethe option(s) he/she may be interested in. For example, the user may beinterested in police investigations associated with the bank robbery.Therefore, the user may select the police investigations. In some cases,the user may be interested in more than one option and may selectmultiple options such as police investigations and victim updates. Insome cases, the user may choose to select all of the options listed. Theuser may confirm the selections using button 106, or cancel the taggingprocess using button 108. Suppose that the user selects the option,police investigations.

Upon receiving the user's selections of the options associated with theclass of the first media content object, the media guidance applicationmay identify an update period associated with the first option. Optionsmay be associated with update periods (e.g., units of time) based on thefrequency of occurrences of updates in an option. The process forderiving the update period is discussed in the description of FIG. 12.Suppose that the media guidance application provides three options:police investigations, victim updates, and court cases. Court cases, thethird option, may have a monthly update period. This is because reportson court cases may be infrequent. Police investigations and victimupdates, the first and second options, may each have hourly updateperiods. This is because stories of police searches, victim interviews,and clues may be transmitted frequently after the crime. The mediaguidance application may store the update period in a subject matterdatabase. For example, based on the user's selected option, policeinvestigations, the media guidance application may set the update periodassociated with the first media content object as hourly and may storethe value in the subject matter database under a section “policeinvestigations.”

The media guidance application may then measure a time period since arelease time of the first media content object. The release time is thetime at which the first media content object is transmitted by thecontent provider. For example, the release time for a news broadcastabout the bank robbery in Manhattan may be Oct. 7, 2017 at 5:00 pm.Suppose that the user chooses to tag the news broadcast. The mediaguidance application (e.g., via control circuitry 604 (discussed in FIG.6 description)) may identify the news broadcast video clip as the firstmedia content object and begin measuring time from the release time(e.g., incrementing by a unit of time).

Once the update period has passed after the release time, the mediaguidance application may simultaneously monitor a plurality of contentsources for a second media content object (e.g., a video clip of a newsupdate). The plurality of content sources may include differenttelevision channels, online video sources, radio stations, podcasts,news articles, etc. For example, the media guidance application maymonitor a morning news show broadcasted on a radio station. The newsshow may mention that the robber has been identified by the police afteran investigation involving surveillance cameras and fingerprints.Suppose that the update period is hourly. The news segment on the radiostation may be broadcasted on Oct. 8, 2017 at 8:00 am. Thus, the mediaguidance application may identify the audio clip of the news segment asthe second media content object. The media guidance application may thenextract a second plurality of keywords associated with the second mediacontent object, using the keyword extraction methods discussedpreviously. In this particular case, the media guidance application mayexclusively employ speech recognition to transcribe the audio of thenews segment, and then utilize natural language processing to determinekeywords.

The media guidance application may then determine whether the secondmedia content object shares common subject matter with the first mediacontent object by comparing the first plurality of keywords with thesecond plurality of keywords. The media guidance application may usepredetermined thresholds to evaluate whether there is enough similaritybetween the first and second pluralities. A threshold may be aquantitative (e.g., percentage, fraction) or qualitative (e.g.,“similar,” “not similar”) value that represents the boundary that mustbe satisfied. For example, the media guidance application may retrieve alower level of the threshold. The lower level of the threshold may bethe minimum amount of keywords from the first plurality of keywords thatmust be included in the second plurality of keywords. Suppose that thesecond plurality of keywords includes “Manhattan,” “bank,” “robbery,”“mask,” “gun,” “camera,” and “fingerprints.” The media guidanceapplication (via control circuitry 604 (discussed in FIG. 6description)) may determine that the second media content object hascommon subject matter with the first media content object if the lowerlevel of the threshold is met.

As mentioned previously, the first plurality of keywords may include“Manhattan,” “bank,” “robbery,” “money,” “gun,” and “camera.”Collectively, both pluralities contain eight unique words. The secondplurality of keywords shares five words with the first plurality ofkeywords. In this example, the media guidance application may retrievethe lower level of the threshold from memory (e.g., storage 608(discussed in FIG. 6 description)) and determine that the lower level ofthe threshold is 30%. In order to be considered common subject matterwith the first media content object, the media guidance applicationtherefore requires at least 30% of the words to be shared with the firstplurality of keywords. In some embodiments, if the user selects theoption “similar stories” in FIG. 1, the media guidance application mayset the lower level of the threshold to a smaller value (e.g., 20%) todetect media content objects that are similar, but not perhapsassociated with the exact same news story. In this case, approximately72% of the second plurality of keywords are also included in the firstplurality of keywords. Based on this, the media guidance application maydetermine that the second media content object has common subject matterwith the first media content object.

The media guidance application may then determine that the amount of thefirst plurality of keywords included in the second plurality of keywordsis less than an upper level of the threshold. The upper level of thethreshold may be the maximum amount of keywords present in both thefirst and second plurality. If the amount exceeds the upper level of thethreshold, the media guidance application may determine that the secondmedia content object is too similar to the first media content object(e.g., same story or a rerun). Suppose that the upper level of thethreshold is 80% and the amount, as discusses previously, is 72%. Themedia guidance application may determine that the second media contentobject features new information associated with the first media contentobject.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine thatthe amount of option keywords included in the second plurality ofkeywords is greater than an options threshold. The options thresholdrepresents the minimum amount of option keywords, which arepredetermined keywords associated with each option of a class, that needto be included in the second plurality of keywords. The process ofdetermining the option keywords is further discussed in the descriptionof FIG. 10. The media guidance application may retrieve the optionthreshold (e.g., set to 10%) from memory (e.g., storage 608 (discussedin FIG. 6 description)). The option, police investigations, may beassociated with option keywords such as “police,” “clues,” “camera,”“witnesses,” and “questioning.” If the second plurality of keywordsincludes “Manhattan,” “bank,” “robbery,” “mask,” “gun,” “camera,” and“fingerprints,” the media guidance application may determine that“camera” is an option keyword that accounts for approximately 14% of thesecond plurality of keywords. Therefore, control circuitry 604 maydetermine that the amount of the option keywords included in the secondplurality of keywords is greater than the options threshold.

Once the media guidance application has determined that the second mediacontent object shares common subject matter with first media contentobject (e.g., based on lower level of the threshold), features newinformation about the subject matter (e.g., based on the upper level ofthe threshold), and pertains to a specific aspect of the subject matter(e.g., based on the options threshold), the media guidance applicationmay store the second media content object. Furthermore, the mediaguidance application may alert the user through a notification on theuser's display.

FIG. 2 is an illustrative example of a display screen 200 that alertsthe user of a second media content object that has been stored, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. Overlay 202 informsthe user of the class of the first media content object (e.g., “CriminalActivity”) and the original title of the first media content object thatwas tagged (e.g., “Bank Robbery”). This ensures that the user isprovided information about the first media content object that he/shetagged, in the event that the user tagged multiple media contentobjects.

Overlay 204 informs the user of the option that the second media contentobject is associated with (e.g., police investigations). In addition,overlay 204 lists the title of the second media content object. Thetitle of the second media content object may be retrieved from themetadata associated with the second media content object. In this case,because the second media content object is an audio clip, the associatedmetadata only may list the name of the news show broadcasted on theradio station. Therefore, the media guidance application may refer tothe second plurality of keywords and place the most frequently usedwords in the title section of overlay 204 (e.g., “Bank Video Tapes ShowRobber”). The user may select to access the second media content objectby selecting button 206. In contrast, the user may select to dismiss thealert by selecting button 208.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application searches theplurality of content sources for media content objects that include lessthan all of the first plurality of keywords and that are associated witha release time that precedes the first release time. The first releasetime is the time the first media content object is transmitted (e.g.,Oct. 7, 2017 at 5:00 pm). The media guidance application may search formedia content objects with release times before the first time on theInternet or databases of stored media from the content provider. Forexample, the media guidance application may retrieve previous newsstories related to the bank robbery from the CNN News website (e.g.,news story about suspicious activities near the bank a few days beforethe robbery). Accordingly, each media content object with a release timethat precedes the first release time will be analyzed by the mediaguidance application (e.g., extract keywords, determine that the mediacontent object shares common subject matter with the first media contentobject). Suppose that the media guidance application detects a videoclip on the CNN News website with a release time of Oct. 1, 2017 at 4:00pm. The video clip may discuss suspicious activity near the bank thatwas robbed on Oct. 7, 2017. The media guidance application may identifythe video clip as a third media content object and repeat the processpreviously discussed for determining whether the third media contentobject is associated with the first media content object (e.g., sharescommon subject matter, includes new information) using keywords. Upondetermining that the third media content object does share commonsubject matter and features new information, the media guidanceapplication may store the third media content object. It should be notedthat when storing media content objects, the media guidance applicationalso stores the release time, class, keywords, and user-selected optionsassociated with the media content object. This information can later beused to generate an intuitive user interface for accessing all mediacontent objects associated with the media content object originallytagged by the user.

FIG. 3 is an illustrative example of a display screen 300 presenting atimeline of four media content objects ordered based on their respectiverelease times, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure.Media selector 302 indicates the title and the associated release timeof the media content object. In some embodiments, if the user hasselected multiple options of aspects of subject matter (e.g., policeinvestigations and court cases), media selector 302 may include theoption the media content object is associated with. In FIG. 3, fourmedia selectors are depicted, each representing a different mediacontent object. Time tracker 304 represents the range of time in whichthe media content objects shown in the media selectors were transmitted(e.g., based on release times). The user may scroll through additionalmedia content objects (if any exist), by selecting button 306.

FIGS. 4-5 show illustrative display screens that may be used to providemedia guidance data. The display screens shown in FIGS. 4-5 may beimplemented on any suitable user equipment device or platform. While thedisplays of FIGS. 4-5 are illustrated as full screen displays, they mayalso be fully or partially overlaid over content being displayed. A usermay indicate a desire to access content information by selecting aselectable option provided in a display screen (e.g., a menu option, alistings option, an icon, a hyperlink, etc.) or pressing a dedicatedbutton (e.g., a GUIDE button) on a remote control or other user inputinterface or device. In response to the user's indication, the mediaguidance application may provide a display screen with media guidancedata organized in one of several ways, such as by time and channel in agrid, by time, by channel, by source, by content type, by category(e.g., movies, sports, news, children, or other categories ofprogramming), or other predefined, user-defined, or other organizationcriteria.

FIG. 4 shows illustrative grid of a program listings display 400arranged by time and channel that also enables access to different typesof content in a single display. Display 400 may include grid 402 with:(1) a column of channel/content type identifiers 404, where eachchannel/content type identifier (which is a cell in the column)identifies a different channel or content type available; and (2) a rowof time identifiers 406, where each time identifier (which is a cell inthe row) identifies a time block of programming Grid 402 also includescells of program listings, such as program listing 408, where eachlisting provides the title of the program provided on the listing'sassociated channel and time. With a user input device, a user can selectprogram listings by moving highlight region 410. Information relating tothe program listing selected by highlight region 410 may be provided inprogram information region 412. Region 412 may include, for example, theprogram title, the program description, the time the program is provided(if applicable), the channel the program is on (if applicable), theprogram's rating, and other desired information.

In addition to providing access to linear programming (e.g., contentthat is scheduled to be transmitted to a plurality of user equipmentdevices at a predetermined time and is provided according to aschedule), the media guidance application also provides access tonon-linear programming (e.g., content accessible to a user equipmentdevice at any time and is not provided according to a schedule).Non-linear programming may include content from different contentsources including on-demand content (e.g., VOD), Internet content (e.g.,streaming media, downloadable media, etc.), locally stored content(e.g., content stored on any user equipment device described above orother storage device), or other time-independent content. On-demandcontent may include movies or any other content provided by a particularcontent provider (e.g., HBO On Demand providing “The Sopranos” and “CurbYour Enthusiasm”). HBO ON DEMAND is a service mark owned by Time WarnerCompany L. P. et al. and THE SOPRANOS and CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM aretrademarks owned by the Home Box Office, Inc. Internet content mayinclude web events, such as a chat session or Webcast, or contentavailable on-demand as streaming content or downloadable content throughan Internet web site or other Internet access (e.g. FTP).

Grid 402 may provide media guidance data for non-linear programmingincluding on-demand listing 414, recorded content listing 416, andInternet content listing 418. A display combining media guidance datafor content from different types of content sources is sometimesreferred to as a “mixed-media” display. Various permutations of thetypes of media guidance data that may be displayed that are differentthan display 400 may be based on user selection or guidance applicationdefinition (e.g., a display of only recorded and broadcast listings,only on-demand and broadcast listings, etc.). As illustrated, listings414, 416, and 418 are shown as spanning the entire time block displayedin grid 402 to indicate that selection of these listings may provideaccess to a display dedicated to on-demand listings, recorded listings,or Internet listings, respectively. In some embodiments, listings forthese content types may be included directly in grid 402. Additionalmedia guidance data may be displayed in response to the user selectingone of the navigational icons 420. (Pressing an arrow key on a userinput device may affect the display in a similar manner as selectingnavigational icons 420.)

Display 400 may also include video region 422, and options region 426.Video region 422 may allow the user to view and/or preview programs thatare currently available, will be available, or were available to theuser. The content of video region 422 may correspond to, or beindependent from, one of the listings displayed in grid 402. Griddisplays including a video region are sometimes referred to aspicture-in-guide (PIG) displays. PIG displays and their functionalitiesare described in greater detail in Satterfield et al. U.S. Pat. No.6,564,378, issued May 13, 2003 and Yuen et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,239,794,issued May 29, 2001, which are hereby incorporated by reference hereinin their entireties. PIG displays may be included in other mediaguidance application display screens of the embodiments describedherein.

Options region 426 may allow the user to access different types ofcontent, media guidance application displays, and/or media guidanceapplication features. Options region 426 may be part of display 400 (andother display screens described herein), or may be invoked by a user byselecting an on-screen option or pressing a dedicated or assignablebutton on a user input device. The selectable options within optionsregion 426 may concern features related to program listings in grid 402or may include options available from a main menu display. Featuresrelated to program listings may include searching for other air times orways of receiving a program, recording a program, enabling seriesrecording of a program, setting program and/or channel as a favorite,purchasing a program, or other features. Options available from a mainmenu display may include search options, VOD options, parental controloptions, Internet options, cloud-based options, device synchronizationoptions, second screen device options, options to access various typesof media guidance data displays, options to subscribe to a premiumservice, options to edit a user's profile, options to access a browseoverlay, or other options.

The media guidance application may be personalized based on a user'spreferences. A personalized media guidance application allows a user tocustomize displays and features to create a personalized “experience”with the media guidance application. This personalized experience may becreated by allowing a user to input these customizations and/or by themedia guidance application monitoring user activity to determine varioususer preferences. Users may access their personalized guidanceapplication by logging in or otherwise identifying themselves to theguidance application. Customization of the media guidance applicationmay be made in accordance with a user profile. The customizations mayinclude varying presentation schemes (e.g., color scheme of displays,font size of text, etc.), aspects of content listings displayed (e.g.,only HDTV or only 3D programming, user-specified broadcast channelsbased on favorite channel selections, re-ordering the display ofchannels, recommended content, etc.), desired recording features (e.g.,recording or series recordings for particular users, recording quality,etc.), parental control settings, customized presentation of Internetcontent (e.g., presentation of social media content, e-mail,electronically delivered articles, etc.) and other desiredcustomizations.

The media guidance application may allow a user to provide user profileinformation or may automatically compile user profile information. Themedia guidance application may, for example, monitor the content theuser accesses and/or other interactions the user may have with theguidance application. Additionally, the media guidance application mayobtain all or part of other user profiles that are related to aparticular user (e.g., from other web sites on the Internet the useraccesses, such as www.Tivo.com, from other media guidance applicationsthe user accesses, from other interactive applications the useraccesses, from another user equipment device of the user, etc.), and/orobtain information about the user from other sources that the mediaguidance application may access. As a result, a user can be providedwith a unified guidance application experience across the user'sdifferent user equipment devices. This type of user experience isdescribed in greater detail below in connection with FIG. 7. Additionalpersonalized media guidance application features are described ingreater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No.2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005, Boyer et al., U.S. Pat. No.7,165,098, issued Jan. 16, 2007, and Ellis et al., U.S. PatentApplication Publication No. 2002/0174430, filed Feb. 21, 2002, which arehereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.

Another display arrangement for providing media guidance is shown inFIG. 5. Video mosaic display 500 includes selectable options 502 forcontent information organized based on content type, genre, and/or otherorganization criteria. In display 500, television listings option 504 isselected, thus providing listings 506, 508, 510, and 512 as broadcastprogram listings. In display 500 the listings may provide graphicalimages including cover art, still images from the content, video clippreviews, live video from the content, or other types of content thatindicate to a user the content being described by the media guidancedata in the listing. Each of the graphical listings may also beaccompanied by text to provide further information about the contentassociated with the listing. For example, listing 508 may include morethan one portion, including media portion 514 and text portion 516.Media portion 514 and/or text portion 516 may be selectable to viewcontent in full-screen or to view information related to the contentdisplayed in media portion 514 (e.g., to view listings for the channelthat the video is displayed on).

The listings in display 500 are of different sizes (i.e., listing 506 islarger than listings 508, 510, and 512), but if desired, all thelistings may be the same size. Listings may be of different sizes orgraphically accentuated to indicate degrees of interest to the user orto emphasize certain content, as desired by the content provider orbased on user preferences. Various systems and methods for graphicallyaccentuating content listings are discussed in, for example, Yates, U.S.Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0153885, filed Nov. 12, 2009,which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Users may access content and the media guidance application (and itsdisplay screens described above and below) from one or more of theiruser equipment devices. FIG. 6 shows a generalized embodiment ofillustrative user equipment device 600. More specific implementations ofuser equipment devices are discussed below in connection with FIG. 7.User equipment device 600 may receive content and data via input/output(hereinafter “I/O”) path 602. I/O path 602 may provide content (e.g.,broadcast programming, on-demand programming, Internet content, contentavailable over a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN),and/or other content) and data to control circuitry 604, which includesprocessing circuitry 606 and storage 608. Control circuitry 604 may beused to send and receive commands, requests, and other suitable datausing I/O path 602. I/O path 602 may connect control circuitry 604 (andspecifically processing circuitry 606) to one or more communicationspaths (described below). I/O functions may be provided by one or more ofthese communications paths, but are shown as a single path in FIG. 6 toavoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Control circuitry 604 may be based on any suitable processing circuitrysuch as processing circuitry 606. As referred to herein, processingcircuitry should be understood to mean circuitry based on one or moremicroprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors,programmable logic devices, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs),application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), etc., and may includea multi-core processor (e.g., dual-core, quad-core, hexa-core, or anysuitable number of cores) or supercomputer. In some embodiments,processing circuitry may be distributed across multiple separateprocessors or processing units, for example, multiple of the same typeof processing units (e.g., two Intel Core i7 processors) or multipledifferent processors (e.g., an Intel Core i5 processor and an Intel Corei7 processor). In some embodiments, control circuitry 604 executesinstructions for a media guidance application stored in memory (i.e.,storage 608). Specifically, control circuitry 604 may be instructed bythe media guidance application to perform the functions discussed aboveand below. For example, the media guidance application may provideinstructions to control circuitry 604 to generate the media guidancedisplays. In some implementations, any action performed by controlcircuitry 604 may be based on instructions received from the mediaguidance application.

In client-server based embodiments, control circuitry 604 may includecommunications circuitry suitable for communicating with a guidanceapplication server or other networks or servers. The instructions forcarrying out the above-mentioned functionality may be stored on theguidance application server. Communications circuitry may include acable modem, an integrated services digital network (ISDN) modem, adigital subscriber line (DSL) modem, a telephone modem, Ethernet card,or a wireless modem for communications with other equipment, or anyother suitable communications circuitry. Such communications may involvethe Internet or any other suitable communications networks or paths(which is described in more detail in connection with FIG. 7). Inaddition, communications circuitry may include circuitry that enablespeer-to-peer communication of user equipment devices, or communicationof user equipment devices in locations remote from each other (describedin more detail below).

Memory may be an electronic storage device provided as storage 608 thatis part of control circuitry 604. As referred to herein, the phrase“electronic storage device” or “storage device” should be understood tomean any device for storing electronic data, computer software, orfirmware, such as random-access memory, read-only memory, hard drives,optical drives, digital video disc (DVD) recorders, compact disc (CD)recorders, BLU-RAY disc (BD) recorders, BLU-RAY 3D disc recorders,digital video recorders (DVR, sometimes called a personal videorecorder, or PVR), solid state devices, quantum storage devices, gamingconsoles, gaming media, or any other suitable fixed or removable storagedevices, and/or any combination of the same. Storage 608 may be used tostore various types of content described herein as well as mediaguidance data described above. Nonvolatile memory may also be used(e.g., to launch a boot-up routine and other instructions). Cloud-basedstorage, described in relation to FIG. 7, may be used to supplementstorage 608 or instead of storage 608.

Control circuitry 604 may include video generating circuitry and tuningcircuitry, such as one or more analog tuners, one or more MPEG-2decoders or other digital decoding circuitry, high-definition tuners, orany other suitable tuning or video circuits or combinations of suchcircuits. Encoding circuitry (e.g., for converting over-the-air, analog,or digital signals to MPEG signals for storage) may also be provided.Control circuitry 604 may also include scaler circuitry for upconvertingand downconverting content into the preferred output format of the userequipment 600. Circuitry 604 may also include digital-to-analogconverter circuitry and analog-to-digital converter circuitry forconverting between digital and analog signals. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may be used by the user equipment device to receive and todisplay, to play, or to record content. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may also be used to receive guidance data. The circuitrydescribed herein, including for example, the tuning, video generating,encoding, decoding, encrypting, decrypting, scaler, and analog/digitalcircuitry, may be implemented using software running on one or moregeneral purpose or specialized processors. Multiple tuners may beprovided to handle simultaneous tuning functions (e.g., watch and recordfunctions, picture-in-picture (PIP) functions, multiple-tuner recording,etc.). If storage 608 is provided as a separate device from userequipment 600, the tuning and encoding circuitry (including multipletuners) may be associated with storage 608.

A user may send instructions to control circuitry 604 using user inputinterface 610. User input interface 610 may be any suitable userinterface, such as a remote control, mouse, trackball, keypad, keyboard,touch screen, touchpad, stylus input, joystick, voice recognitioninterface, or other user input interfaces. Display 612 may be providedas a stand-alone device or integrated with other elements of userequipment device 600. For example, display 612 may be a touchscreen ortouch-sensitive display. In such circumstances, user input interface 610may be integrated with or combined with display 612. Display 612 may beone or more of a monitor, a television, a liquid crystal display (LCD)for a mobile device, amorphous silicon display, low temperature polysilicon display, electronic ink display, electrophoretic display, activematrix display, electro-wetting display, electrofluidic display, cathoderay tube display, light-emitting diode display, electroluminescentdisplay, plasma display panel, high-performance addressing display,thin-film transistor display, organic light-emitting diode display,surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED), laser television,carbon nanotubes, quantum dot display, interferometric modulatordisplay, or any other suitable equipment for displaying visual images.In some embodiments, display 612 may be HDTV-capable. In someembodiments, display 612 may be a 3D display, and the interactive mediaguidance application and any suitable content may be displayed in 3D. Avideo card or graphics card may generate the output to the display 612.The video card may offer various functions such as accelerated renderingof 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or theability to connect multiple monitors. The video card may be anyprocessing circuitry described above in relation to control circuitry604. The video card may be integrated with the control circuitry 604.Speakers 614 may be provided as integrated with other elements of userequipment device 600 or may be stand-alone units. The audio component ofvideos and other content displayed on display 612 may be played throughspeakers 614. In some embodiments, the audio may be distributed to areceiver (not shown), which processes and outputs the audio via speakers614.

The guidance application may be implemented using any suitablearchitecture. For example, it may be a stand-alone applicationwholly-implemented on user equipment device 600. In such an approach,instructions of the application are stored locally (e.g., in storage608), and data for use by the application is downloaded on a periodicbasis (e.g., from an out-of-band feed, from an Internet resource, orusing another suitable approach). Control circuitry 604 may retrieveinstructions of the application from storage 608 and process theinstructions to generate any of the displays discussed herein. Based onthe processed instructions, control circuitry 604 may determine whataction to perform when input is received from input interface 610. Forexample, movement of a cursor on a display up/down may be indicated bythe processed instructions when input interface 610 indicates that anup/down button was selected.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is a client-serverbased application. Data for use by a thick or thin client implemented onuser equipment device 600 is retrieved on-demand by issuing requests toa server remote to the user equipment device 600. In one example of aclient-server based guidance application, control circuitry 604 runs aweb browser that interprets web pages provided by a remote server. Forexample, the remote server may store the instructions for theapplication in a storage device. The remote server may process thestored instructions using circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 604) andgenerate the displays discussed above and below. The client device mayreceive the displays generated by the remote server and may display thecontent of the displays locally on equipment device 600. This way, theprocessing of the instructions is performed remotely by the server whilethe resulting displays are provided locally on equipment device 600.Equipment device 600 may receive inputs from the user via inputinterface 610 and transmit those inputs to the remote server forprocessing and generating the corresponding displays. For example,equipment device 600 may transmit a communication to the remote serverindicating that an up/down button was selected via input interface 610.The remote server may process instructions in accordance with that inputand generate a display of the application corresponding to the input(e.g., a display that moves a cursor up/down). The generated display isthen transmitted to equipment device 600 for presentation to the user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is downloaded andinterpreted or otherwise run by an interpreter or virtual machine (runby control circuitry 604). In some embodiments, the guidance applicationmay be encoded in the ETV Binary Interchange Format (EBIF), received bycontrol circuitry 604 as part of a suitable feed, and interpreted by auser agent running on control circuitry 604. For example, the guidanceapplication may be an EBIF application. In some embodiments, theguidance application may be defined by a series of JAVA-based files thatare received and run by a local virtual machine or other suitablemiddleware executed by control circuitry 604. In some of suchembodiments (e.g., those employing MPEG-2 or other digital mediaencoding schemes), the guidance application may be, for example, encodedand transmitted in an MPEG-2 object carousel with the MPEG audio andvideo packets of a program.

User equipment device 600 of FIG. 6 can be implemented in system 700 ofFIG. 7 as user television equipment 702, user computer equipment 704,wireless user communications device 706, or any other type of userequipment suitable for accessing content, such as a non-portable gamingmachine. For simplicity, these devices may be referred to hereincollectively as user equipment or user equipment devices, and may besubstantially similar to user equipment devices described above. Userequipment devices, on which a media guidance application may beimplemented, may function as a standalone device or may be part of anetwork of devices. Various network configurations of devices may beimplemented and are discussed in more detail below.

A user equipment device utilizing at least some of the system featuresdescribed above in connection with FIG. 6 may not be classified solelyas user television equipment 702, user computer equipment 704, or awireless user communications device 706. For example, user televisionequipment 702 may, like some user computer equipment 704, beInternet-enabled allowing for access to Internet content, while usercomputer equipment 704 may, like some television equipment 702, includea tuner allowing for access to television programming. The mediaguidance application may have the same layout on various different typesof user equipment or may be tailored to the display capabilities of theuser equipment. For example, on user computer equipment 704, theguidance application may be provided as a web site accessed by a webbrowser. In another example, the guidance application may be scaled downfor wireless user communications devices 706.

In system 700, there is typically more than one of each type of userequipment device but only one of each is shown in FIG. 7 to avoidovercomplicating the drawing. In addition, each user may utilize morethan one type of user equipment device and also more than one of eachtype of user equipment device.

In some embodiments, a user equipment device (e.g., user televisionequipment 702, user computer equipment 704, wireless user communicationsdevice 706) may be referred to as a “second screen device.” For example,a second screen device may supplement content presented on a first userequipment device. The content presented on the second screen device maybe any suitable content that supplements the content presented on thefirst device. In some embodiments, the second screen device provides aninterface for adjusting settings and display preferences of the firstdevice. In some embodiments, the second screen device is configured forinteracting with other second screen devices or for interacting with asocial network. The second screen device can be located in the same roomas the first device, a different room from the first device but in thesame house or building, or in a different building from the firstdevice.

The user may also set various settings to maintain consistent mediaguidance application settings across in-home devices and remote devices.Settings include those described herein, as well as channel and programfavorites, programming preferences that the guidance applicationutilizes to make programming recommendations, display preferences, andother desirable guidance settings. For example, if a user sets a channelas a favorite on, for example, the web site www.Tivo.com on theirpersonal computer at their office, the same channel would appear as afavorite on the user's in-home devices (e.g., user television equipmentand user computer equipment) as well as the user's mobile devices, ifdesired. Therefore, changes made on one user equipment device can changethe guidance experience on another user equipment device, regardless ofwhether they are the same or a different type of user equipment device.In addition, the changes made may be based on settings input by a user,as well as user activity monitored by the guidance application.

The user equipment devices may be coupled to communications network 714.Namely, user television equipment 702, user computer equipment 704, andwireless user communications device 706 are coupled to communicationsnetwork 714 via communications paths 708, 710, and 712, respectively.Communications network 714 may be one or more networks including theInternet, a mobile phone network, mobile voice or data network (e.g., a4G or LTE network), cable network, public switched telephone network, orother types of communications network or combinations of communicationsnetworks. Paths 708, 710, and 712 may separately or together include oneor more communications paths, such as, a satellite path, a fiber-opticpath, a cable path, a path that supports Internet communications (e.g.,IPTV), free-space connections (e.g., for broadcast or other wirelesssignals), or any other suitable wired or wireless communications path orcombination of such paths. Path 712 is drawn with dotted lines toindicate that in the exemplary embodiment shown in FIG. 7 it is awireless path and paths 708 and 710 are drawn as solid lines to indicatethey are wired paths (although these paths may be wireless paths, ifdesired). Communications with the user equipment devices may be providedby one or more of these communications paths, but are shown as a singlepath in FIG. 7 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Although communications paths are not drawn between user equipmentdevices, these devices may communicate directly with each other viacommunication paths, such as those described above in connection withpaths 708, 710, and 712, as well as other short-range point-to-pointcommunication paths, such as USB cables, IEEE 1394 cables, wirelesspaths (e.g., Bluetooth, infrared, IEEE 802-11x, etc.), or othershort-range communication via wired or wireless paths. BLUETOOTH is acertification mark owned by Bluetooth SIG, INC. The user equipmentdevices may also communicate with each other directly through anindirect path via communications network 714.

System 700 includes content source 716 and media guidance data source718 coupled to communications network 714 via communication paths 720and 722, respectively. Paths 720 and 722 may include any of thecommunication paths described above in connection with paths 708, 710,and 712. Communications with the content source 716 and media guidancedata source 718 may be exchanged over one or more communications paths,but are shown as a single path in FIG. 7 to avoid overcomplicating thedrawing. In addition, there may be more than one of each of contentsource 716 and media guidance data source 718, but only one of each isshown in FIG. 7 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing. (The differenttypes of each of these sources are discussed below.) If desired, contentsource 716 and media guidance data source 718 may be integrated as onesource device. Although communications between sources 716 and 718 withuser equipment devices 702, 704, and 706 are shown as throughcommunications network 714, in some embodiments, sources 716 and 718 maycommunicate directly with user equipment devices 702, 704, and 706 viacommunication paths (not shown) such as those described above inconnection with paths 708, 710, and 712.

Content source 716 may include one or more types of content distributionequipment including a television distribution facility, cable systemheadend, satellite distribution facility, programming sources (e.g.,television broadcasters, such as NBC, ABC, HBO, etc.), intermediatedistribution facilities and/or servers, Internet providers, on-demandmedia servers, and other content providers. NBC is a trademark owned bythe National Broadcasting Company, Inc., ABC is a trademark owned by theAmerican Broadcasting Company, Inc., and HBO is a trademark owned by theHome Box Office, Inc. Content source 716 may be the originator ofcontent (e.g., a television broadcaster, a Webcast provider, etc.) ormay not be the originator of content (e.g., an on-demand contentprovider, an Internet provider of content of broadcast programs fordownloading, etc.). Content source 716 may include cable sources,satellite providers, on-demand providers, Internet providers,over-the-top content providers, or other providers of content. Contentsource 716 may also include a remote media server used to storedifferent types of content (including video content selected by a user),in a location remote from any of the user equipment devices. Systems andmethods for remote storage of content, and providing remotely storedcontent to user equipment are discussed in greater detail in connectionwith Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 7,761,892, issued Jul. 20, 2010, whichis hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Media guidance data source 718 may provide media guidance data, such asthe media guidance data described above. Media guidance data may beprovided to the user equipment devices using any suitable approach. Insome embodiments, the guidance application may be a stand-aloneinteractive television program guide that receives program guide datavia a data feed (e.g., a continuous feed or trickle feed). Programschedule data and other guidance data may be provided to the userequipment on a television channel sideband, using an in-band digitalsignal, using an out-of-band digital signal, or by any other suitabledata transmission technique. Program schedule data and other mediaguidance data may be provided to user equipment on multiple analog ordigital television channels.

In some embodiments, guidance data from media guidance data source 718may be provided to users' equipment using a client-server approach. Forexample, a user equipment device may pull media guidance data from aserver, or a server may push media guidance data to a user equipmentdevice. In some embodiments, a guidance application client residing onthe user's equipment may initiate sessions with source 718 to obtainguidance data when needed, e.g., when the guidance data is out of dateor when the user equipment device receives a request from the user toreceive data. Media guidance may be provided to the user equipment withany suitable frequency (e.g., continuously, daily, a user-specifiedperiod of time, a system-specified period of time, in response to arequest from user equipment, etc.). Media guidance data source 718 mayprovide user equipment devices 702, 704, and 706 the media guidanceapplication itself or software updates for the media guidanceapplication.

In some embodiments, the media guidance data may include viewer data.For example, the viewer data may include current and/or historical useractivity information (e.g., what content the user typically watches,what times of day the user watches content, whether the user interactswith a social network, at what times the user interacts with a socialnetwork to post information, what types of content the user typicallywatches (e.g., pay TV or free TV), mood, brain activity information,etc.). The media guidance data may also include subscription data. Forexample, the subscription data may identify to which sources or servicesa given user subscribes and/or to which sources or services the givenuser has previously subscribed but later terminated access (e.g.,whether the user subscribes to premium channels, whether the user hasadded a premium level of services, whether the user has increasedInternet speed). In some embodiments, the viewer data and/or thesubscription data may identify patterns of a given user for a period ofmore than one year. The media guidance data may include a model (e.g., asurvivor model) used for generating a score that indicates a likelihooda given user will terminate access to a service/source. For example, themedia guidance application may process the viewer data with thesubscription data using the model to generate a value or score thatindicates a likelihood of whether the given user will terminate accessto a particular service or source. In particular, a higher score mayindicate a higher level of confidence that the user will terminateaccess to a particular service or source. Based on the score, the mediaguidance application may generate promotions that entice the user tokeep the particular service or source indicated by the score as one towhich the user will likely terminate access.

Media guidance applications may be, for example, stand-aloneapplications implemented on user equipment devices. For example, themedia guidance application may be implemented as software or a set ofexecutable instructions which may be stored in storage 608, and executedby control circuitry 604 of a user equipment device 600. In someembodiments, media guidance applications may be client-serverapplications where only a client application resides on the userequipment device, and server application resides on a remote server. Forexample, media guidance applications may be implemented partially as aclient application on control circuitry 604 of user equipment device 600and partially on a remote server as a server application (e.g., mediaguidance data source 718) running on control circuitry of the remoteserver. When executed by control circuitry of the remote server (such asmedia guidance data source 718), the media guidance application mayinstruct the control circuitry to generate the guidance applicationdisplays and transmit the generated displays to the user equipmentdevices. The server application may instruct the control circuitry ofthe media guidance data source 718 to transmit data for storage on theuser equipment. The client application may instruct control circuitry ofthe receiving user equipment to generate the guidance applicationdisplays.

Content and/or media guidance data delivered to user equipment devices702, 704, and 706 may be over-the-top (OTT) content. OTT contentdelivery allows Internet-enabled user devices, including any userequipment device described above, to receive content that is transferredover the Internet, including any content described above, in addition tocontent received over cable or satellite connections. OTT content isdelivered via an Internet connection provided by an Internet serviceprovider (ISP), but a third party distributes the content. The ISP maynot be responsible for the viewing abilities, copyrights, orredistribution of the content, and may only transfer IP packets providedby the OTT content provider. Examples of OTT content providers includeYOUTUBE, NETFLIX, and HULU, which provide audio and video via IPpackets. Youtube is a trademark owned by Google Inc., Netflix is atrademark owned by Netflix Inc., and Hulu is a trademark owned by Hulu,LLC. OTT content providers may additionally or alternatively providemedia guidance data described above. In addition to content and/or mediaguidance data, providers of OTT content can distribute media guidanceapplications (e.g., web-based applications or cloud-based applications),or the content can be displayed by media guidance applications stored onthe user equipment device.

Media guidance system 700 is intended to illustrate a number ofapproaches, or network configurations, by which user equipment devicesand sources of content and guidance data may communicate with each otherfor the purpose of accessing content and providing media guidance. Theembodiments described herein may be applied in any one or a subset ofthese approaches, or in a system employing other approaches fordelivering content and providing media guidance. The following fourapproaches provide specific illustrations of the generalized example ofFIG. 7.

In one approach, user equipment devices may communicate with each otherwithin a home network. User equipment devices can communicate with eachother directly via short-range point-to-point communication schemesdescribed above, via indirect paths through a hub or other similardevice provided on a home network, or via communications network 714.Each of the multiple individuals in a single home may operate differentuser equipment devices on the home network. As a result, it may bedesirable for various media guidance information or settings to becommunicated between the different user equipment devices. For example,it may be desirable for users to maintain consistent media guidanceapplication settings on different user equipment devices within a homenetwork, as described in greater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. PatentPublication No. 2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005. Different types ofuser equipment devices in a home network may also communicate with eachother to transmit content. For example, a user may transmit content fromuser computer equipment to a portable video player or portable musicplayer.

In a second approach, users may have multiple types of user equipment bywhich they access content and obtain media guidance. For example, someusers may have home networks that are accessed by in-home and mobiledevices. Users may control in-home devices via a media guidanceapplication implemented on a remote device. For example, users mayaccess an online media guidance application on a website via a personalcomputer at their office, or a mobile device such as a PDA orweb-enabled mobile telephone. The user may set various settings (e.g.,recordings, reminders, or other settings) on the online guidanceapplication to control the user's in-home equipment. The online guidemay control the user's equipment directly, or by communicating with amedia guidance application on the user's in-home equipment. Varioussystems and methods for user equipment devices communicating, where theuser equipment devices are in locations remote from each other, isdiscussed in, for example, Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 8,046,801, issuedOct. 25, 2011, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in itsentirety.

In a third approach, users of user equipment devices inside and outsidea home can use their media guidance application to communicate directlywith content source 716 to access content. Specifically, within a home,users of user television equipment 702 and user computer equipment 704may access the media guidance application to navigate among and locatedesirable content. Users may also access the media guidance applicationoutside of the home using wireless user communications devices 706 tonavigate among and locate desirable content.

In a fourth approach, user equipment devices may operate in a cloudcomputing environment to access cloud services. In a cloud computingenvironment, various types of computing services for content sharing,storage or distribution (e.g., video sharing sites or social networkingsites) are provided by a collection of network-accessible computing andstorage resources, referred to as “the cloud.” For example, the cloudcan include a collection of server computing devices, which may belocated centrally or at distributed locations, that provide cloud-basedservices to various types of users and devices connected via a networksuch as the Internet via communications network 714. These cloudresources may include one or more content sources 716 and one or moremedia guidance data sources 718. In addition or in the alternative, theremote computing sites may include other user equipment devices, such asuser television equipment 702, user computer equipment 704, and wirelessuser communications device 706. For example, the other user equipmentdevices may provide access to a stored copy of a video or a streamedvideo. In such embodiments, user equipment devices may operate in apeer-to-peer manner without communicating with a central server.

The cloud provides access to services, such as content storage, contentsharing, or social networking services, among other examples, as well asaccess to any content described above, for user equipment devices.Services can be provided in the cloud through cloud computing serviceproviders, or through other providers of online services. For example,the cloud-based services can include a content storage service, acontent sharing site, a social networking site, or other services viawhich user-sourced content is distributed for viewing by others onconnected devices. These cloud-based services may allow a user equipmentdevice to store content to the cloud and to receive content from thecloud rather than storing content locally and accessing locally-storedcontent.

A user may use various content capture devices, such as camedia contentobjectrders, digital cameras with video mode, audio recorders, mobilephones, and handheld computing devices, to record content. The user canupload content to a content storage service on the cloud eitherdirectly, for example, from user computer equipment 704 or wireless usercommunications device 706 having content capture feature. Alternatively,the user can first transfer the content to a user equipment device, suchas user computer equipment 704. The user equipment device storing thecontent uploads the content to the cloud using a data transmissionservice on communications network 714. In some embodiments, the userequipment device itself is a cloud resource, and other user equipmentdevices can access the content directly from the user equipment deviceon which the user stored the content.

Cloud resources may be accessed by a user equipment device using, forexample, a web browser, a media guidance application, a desktopapplication, a mobile application, and/or any combination of accessapplications of the same. The user equipment device may be a cloudclient that relies on cloud computing for application delivery, or theuser equipment device may have some functionality without access tocloud resources. For example, some applications running on the userequipment device may be cloud applications, i.e., applications deliveredas a service over the Internet, while other applications may be storedand run on the user equipment device. In some embodiments, a user devicemay receive content from multiple cloud resources simultaneously. Forexample, a user device can stream audio from one cloud resource whiledownloading content from a second cloud resource. Or a user device candownload content from multiple cloud resources for more efficientdownloading. In some embodiments, user equipment devices can use cloudresources for processing operations such as the processing operationsperformed by processing circuitry described in relation to FIG. 6.

As referred herein, the term “in response to” refers to initiated as aresult of. For example, a first action being performed in response to asecond action may include interstitial steps between the first actionand the second action. As referred herein, the term “directly inresponse to” refers to caused by. For example, a first action beingperformed directly in response to a second action may not includeinterstitial steps between the first action and the second action.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of illustrative steps of a process 800 foraggregating related media content based on a first user selection, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. It should be notedthat process 800 or any step thereof could be performed on, or providedby, any of the devices shown in FIGS. 6-7. For example, process 800 maybe executed by control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) as instructed by a mediaguidance application implemented on a user device (e.g., user equipmentdevices 702, 704, and/or 706 (FIG. 7)) in order to aggregate relatedmedia content based on a first user selection. In addition, one or moresteps of process 800 may be incorporated into or combined with one ormore steps of any other process or embodiment (e.g., as described inrelation to FIGS. 1-2, and 9-15).

Consider a situation in which a user is viewing a news report about abank robbery on FOX News. Based on his/her interest, the user may chooseto tag the story via I/O Path 602 (FIG. 6) on a user input interface 610generated by control circuitry 604. At step 802, control circuitry 604receives a first user selection of a first media content object. Thefirst media content object may be a video clip of the news report.Control circuitry 604 also receives an option representing a type ofinformation update related to the first media content object. Forexample, the option may represent information types pertaining to“police investigations” or “court cases.” This type of informationupdate may represent an aspect of the story that the user is interestedin (e.g., police investigations may deal with crime scene analysis andcourt cases may deal with any court matters once the robber is caught).

At step 804, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) extracts a first pluralityof keywords that is associated with the first media content object andthat corresponds to the type of information update. Control circuitry604 (FIG. 6) may extract keywords in different ways. For example,control circuitry 604 may retrieve, from the media guidance data source718 (FIG. 7), metadata associated with the media content object, todetermine keywords. Control circuitry 604 may also extract subtitlesfrom the media content object. Control circuitry 604 may utilize naturallanguage processing and speech recognition to determine text from audioassociated with the media content object.

Control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) may also utilize computer visionprocesses (e.g., segmentation, edge detection) to identify objects onthe screen. For example, the media guidance application may identifyimages of a bank on the screen and classify “bank” as a keyword. Imagesof various recurring objects may be stored in an image database instorage 608 with the classified name. For example, images of a bank maybe stored and classified as “bank.” When control circuitry 604 detects apotential image of a bank in the media content object, control circuitry604 may compare the potential image with images in the image database.If a match exists, control circuitry 604 may determine an additionalkeyword as the classified name associated with the matching images inthe image database. Similarly, the media guidance application may parseimages of text on the screen such as “Breaking News: Bank Robbery inManhattan,” convert to text, and classify “bank,” “robbery” and“Manhattan” as keywords. In this case, the keywords may include“robber,” “Citibank,” “stolen,” “Manhattan,” “Broadway,” “October,”“money,” etc.

At step 806, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) measures a time period sincea release time of the first media content object. For example, controlcircuitry 604 may refer to the metadata of the first media contentobject retrieved from the media guidance data source 718 (FIG. 7), todetermine that the first media content object was broadcasted on FOXNews on Monday Oct. 16, 2017 at 5:00 pm. Based on the type ofinformation update, control circuitry 604 may set an update period andstore the value of the update period in storage 608. Suppose that thetype of information update is associated with court cases. Controlcircuitry 604 may set the update period to every three months becausecourt case developments are not frequent. The process of deriving theupdate period is discussed in detail in the description of FIG. 12.

At step 808, in response to determining that the time period exceeds anupdate period associated with the type of information, control circuitry604 (FIG. 6) monitors a plurality of content sources for a second mediacontent object that is associated with a second plurality of keywordsthat includes some of the first plurality of keywords. Control circuitry604 may measure a time period since the release time of the first mediacontent object (e.g., Oct. 16, 2017 at 5:00 pm) and after three months(e.g., Jan. 16, 2018 at 5:00 pm) determine that the time period exceedsthe update period. Control circuitry 604 may then monitor a plurality ofcontent sources (e.g., news channels) at the media content source 716(FIG. 7) for a second media content object (e.g., video of a news storyupdate). Control circuitry 604 may extract a second plurality ofkeywords from the second media content object. These keywords mayinclude “robber,” “Manhattan,” “Broadway,” “Citibank,” “October,”“trial,” “judge,” and “guilty.” The second plurality of keywords mayinclude some of the first plurality of keywords. In this example,control circuitry 604 may determine that “robber,” “Manhattan,”“Broadway,” “Citibank,” and “October” appear in both pluralities ofkeywords.

At step 810, in response to determining that an amount of the firstplurality of keywords included in the second plurality of keywords isless than a threshold, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) may store thesecond media content object in storage 608, wherein the thresholdrepresents media content objects with common subject matter updated withnew information. The threshold may be a quantitative (e.g., percentage,fraction, etc.) or qualitative (e.g., similar, not similar, etc.) valuethat is used to determine whether the second media content object offersnew information, or is too similar to the first media content object.For example, control circuitry 604 may set the threshold to be apercentage of similar keywords (e.g., 60%). Upon determining that thesecond media object has common subject matter (process discussed in FIG.10), the media guidance application may note that out of 10 uniquewords, the two pluralities share five keywords (e.g., 50%). Controlcircuitry 604, may determine that this value is less than the threshold.Thus, the media guidance application may store the second media contentobject.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 8 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the steps anddescriptions described in relation to FIG. 8 may be done in alternativeorders or in parallel to further the purposes of this disclosure. Forexample, each of these steps may be performed in any order or inparallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lag or increase thespeed of the system or method. Any of these steps may also be skipped oromitted from the process. Furthermore, it should be noted that any ofthe devices or equipment discussed in relation to FIGS. 6-7 could beused to perform one or more of the steps in FIG. 8.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of illustrative steps of a process 900 foraggregating related media content based on a first user selection, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. It should be notedthat process 900 or any step thereof could be performed on, or providedby, any of the devices shown in FIGS. 6-7. For example, process 900 maybe executed by control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) as instructed by a mediaguidance application implemented on a user device (e.g., user equipmentdevices 702, 704, and/or 706 (FIG. 7)) in order to aggregate relatedmedia content based on a first user selection. In addition, one or moresteps of process 900 may be incorporated into or combined with one ormore steps of any other process or embodiment (e.g., as described inrelation to FIGS. 1-2, 8, and 10-15).

At step 902, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) receives a first userselection of a first media content object. Continuing from the previousexample, suppose that the user is viewing a news report on CNN Newsabout a bank robbery in New York City. The media guidance applicationmay allow the user to tag the story through a user input interface 610on display 612. Based on his/her interest, the user may end up taggingthe story. Control circuitry 604 may receive a selection associated withthe first media content object (e.g., video clip of the news story) viaI/O Path 602.

At step 904, based on a type associated with the first media contentobject, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) generates for display a pluralityof options, each representing an aspect of subject matter of the firstmedia content object. The options may be presented as a part of userinput interface 610 on display 612 and are depicted in overlay 102 (FIG.1). For example, control circuitry 604 may generate, for display, typesof information updates such as victim updates, court cases, and policeinvestigations. Each type of information update is associated with aunique theme. Furthermore, each option may be associated with a set ofkeywords predetermined by control circuitry 604, and stored in storage608. These keywords may be generated by control circuitry 604, based oninformation retrieved from the media guidance data source 608. Forexample, victim updates may deal with the impact of robbery on the bankemployees, bystanders and the community. Associated keywords of victimupdates may include “victim,” “employee,” “community,” etc. Court casesmay encompass any legal cases or charges associated with the bankrobbers. Associated keywords of court cases may include “court,”“judge,” “charged,” “law,” etc.

At step 906, in response to receiving a second user selection of a firstof the plurality of options, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) extracts, inaccordance with the selected first option, a first plurality of keywordsassociated with the first media content object. For example, the usermay select the police investigations option on the user input interface610, via I/O Path 602. In response, control circuitry 604 may begin theprocess of extracting keywords from the media content object. Asdiscussed previously, control circuitry 604 may extract keywords frommetadata associated with the media content object and subtitles from themedia content object. Control circuitry 604 may utilize natural languageprocessing and speech recognition to determine text from audioassociated with the media content object. Control circuitry 604 may alsoexecute computer vision processes (e.g., segmentation, edge detection)to identify objects on the screen and classify them using an imagedatabase. Similarly, control circuitry 604 may parse images of text onthe screen such as “Breaking News: Bank Robbery in Manhattan,” convertto text, and classify “bank,” “robbery” and “Manhattan” as keywords. Theprocesses (e.g., speech recognition, computer vision, classification,etc.) that control circuitry 604 executes to determine keywords can beused in combination. In some embodiments, all processes may be used,while in others, some processes may be omitted.

In the overarching example, suppose that control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6)utilizes all methods listed above to extract keywords. The firstplurality of keywords, as determined by control circuitry 604, may thusinclude “Manhattan,” “bank,” “robbery,” “money,” “gun,” “camera,” etc.

At step 908, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) identifies an update periodassociated with the selected first option. Options may be associatedwith update periods (e.g., unit of time) based on the frequency ofoccurrences of updates in an option. The process for deriving the updateperiod is discussed in the description of FIG. 12. Suppose that controlcircuitry 604 provides three options: police investigations, victimupdates, and court cases. Court cases, the third option, may have amonthly update period. This is because reports on court cases may beinfrequent. Police investigations and victim updates, the first andsecond options, may each have hourly update periods. This is becausestories of police searches, victim interviews, and clues may betransmitted frequently after the crime. Based on the user's selectedoption, police investigations, control circuitry 604 may set the updateperiod associated with the first media content object as hourly.

At step 910, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) measures a time period sincea release time of the first media content object. The release time isthe time at which the first media content object was transmitted by thecontent provider. For example, the release time for a news broadcastabout the bank robbery in Manhattan may be Oct. 7, 2017 at 5:00 pm.Suppose that the user chooses to tag the news broadcast. Controlcircuitry 604 may identify the news broadcast video clip as the firstmedia content object and begin measuring time from the release time(e.g., incrementing by a unit of time).

At step 912, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) determines whether the timeperiod exceeds the update period by comparing the time value of the timeperiod and the time value of the update period. Control circuitry 604may compare the measured time period with the update period whenevercontrol circuitry 604 increments the time period (e.g., every minute).In this case, for example, control circuitry 604 may determine that thetime period exceeds the update period at 6:00 pm on Oct. 7, 2017 becausethe update period is hourly. If the time period does not exceed theupdate period, the process returns to step 910 and control circuitry 604continues measuring time.

At step 914, in response to determining that the time period exceeds theupdate period, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) simultaneously monitors aplurality of content sources for a second media content object that isassociated with a second plurality of keywords that includes some of thefirst plurality of keywords. Control circuitry 604 may also reset themeasured time period and restart the measuring process. Controlcircuitry 604 may extract the second plurality of keywords associatedwith the second media content object. Suppose that at 6:00 pm, controlcircuitry 604 monitors the media content source 716 (FIG. 7) and detectsa second media content object.

At step 916, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) extracts a second pluralityof keywords from the second media content object using computer visionand natural language processing. For example, the audio of the secondmedia content object may feature a news reporter discussing how therobbers wore masks, but left a gun with fingerprints. Using naturallanguage processing, control circuitry 604 may identify keywordsincluding “Manhattan,” “bank,” “robbery,” “mask,” “gun,” “camera,”“fingerprints,” etc.

At step 918, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) determines whether an amountof the first plurality of keywords included in the second plurality ofkeywords is less than a threshold, wherein the threshold representsmedia content objects with common subject matter updated with newinformation. Control circuitry 604 may first determine whether thesecond media content object has common subject matter with the firstmedia content object based on an options threshold and a lower levelthreshold. This process is discussed in detail in the description ofFIG. 10. Suppose that control circuitry 604 determines that both mediacontent objects indeed share common subject matter.

In response to determining that the second media content object hascommon subject matter with the first media content object, controlcircuitry 604 (FIG. 6) may determine that the amount of the firstplurality of keywords included in the second plurality of keywords isless than a threshold. Control circuitry 604 may retrieve, from storage,the threshold, which may be 80%. Therefore, if the second plurality ofkeywords shares 80% or higher of its keywords with the first pluralityof keywords, control circuitry 604 may determine not to store the secondmedia content object (e.g., the second media content object is toosimilar to the first media content object and may be the same newsstory). In the example given, the shared keywords in the secondplurality of keywords only account for approximately 72% of the totalkeywords in the second plurality. Therefore, control circuitry 604 maydetermine that the amount of the first plurality of keywords included inthe second plurality of keywords is less than the threshold.

At step 920, upon determining that an amount of the first plurality ofkeywords included in the second plurality is less than a threshold, orin some embodiments, that the second plurality of keywords satisfies thelower, upper, and option thresholds (discussed in FIG. 10 description),control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) may store the second media content objectin memory (e.g., storage 608). This signifies that the second mediacontent object (e.g., video clip) covers the same story that the userselected (e.g., first media content object). Furthermore, the secondmedia content object is unique and adds additional information to thestory. Lastly, the second media content object corresponds to the aspectof the subject matter requested by the user.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 9 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the steps anddescriptions described in relation to FIG. 9 may be done in alternativeorders or in parallel to further the purposes of this disclosure. Forexample, each of these steps may be performed in any order or inparallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lag or increase thespeed of the system or method. Any of these steps may also be skipped oromitted from the process. Furthermore, it should be noted that any ofthe devices or equipment discussed in relation to FIGS. 6-7 could beused to perform one or more of the steps in FIG. 9.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart of illustrative steps of a process 1000 fordetermining that the second media content object shares common subjectmatter with the first media content object, in accordance with someembodiments of the disclosure. It should be noted that process 1000 orany step thereof could be performed on, or provided by, any of thedevices shown in FIGS. 6-7. For example, process 1000 may be executed bycontrol circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) as instructed by a media guidanceapplication implemented on a user device (e.g., user equipment devices702, 704, and/or 706 (FIG. 7)) in order to determine that the secondmedia content object shares common subject matter with the first mediacontent object. In addition, one or more steps of process 1000 may beincorporated into or combined with one or more steps of any otherprocess or embodiment (e.g., as described in relation to FIGS. 1-2, 8-9,and 11-16).

At step 1002, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) extracts the secondplurality of keywords associated with the second media content object.For example, control circuitry 604 may utilize natural languageprocessing and speech recognition to parse the audio of a news reporterdiscussing a new development in the robbery case. The second pluralityof keywords may thus include “Manhattan,” “bank,” “robbery,” “mask,”“gun,” “camera,” and “fingerprints.”

At step 1004, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) may determine if the amountof the first plurality of keywords included in the second plurality ofkeywords is greater than a lower level of the threshold. For example,the threshold may have an upper level and a lower level, which controlcircuitry 604 retrieves from storage 608. The upper level represents themaximum allowable amount of the first plurality of keywords that can beincluded in the second plurality of keywords. In contrast, the lowerlevel represents the minimum allowable amount of the first plurality ofkeywords that can be included in the second plurality of keywords. Anallowable amount is the amount which control circuitry 604 determinessufficient for storing a media content object.

Control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) may determine that the second mediacontent object has common subject matter with the first media contentobject if the lower level of the threshold is met. For example, thefirst plurality of keywords may include “Manhattan,” “bank,” “robbery,”“money,” “gun,” and “camera.” The second plurality of keywords mayinclude “Manhattan,” “bank,” “robbery,” “mask,” “gun,” “camera,” and“fingerprints.” Collectively, both pluralities contain eight uniquewords. The second plurality of keywords shares five words with the firstplurality of keywords. In this example, control circuitry 604 mayretrieve the lower level of the threshold from storage 608 and determinethat the lower level of the threshold is 30%. In order to be consideredcommon subject matter with the first media content object, controlcircuitry 604 therefore requires at least 30% of the words to be sharedwith the first plurality of keywords. In this case, approximately 72% ofthe second plurality of keywords are also included in the firstplurality of keywords. Based on this, control circuitry 604 maydetermine that the second media content object has common subject matterwith the first media content object.

At step 1006, in response to determining that the amount of the firstplurality of keywords included in the second plurality of keywords isgreater than lower level of the threshold, control circuitry 604 (FIG.6) determines whether the amount of option keywords included in thesecond plurality of keywords is greater than an options threshold. Asdiscussed previously, option keywords are predetermined by controlcircuitry 604 and are associated with the user selected options(generated by the media guidance application). Option keywords may bewords that universally describe a topic. For example, the topic ofpolice investigations may be associated with option keywords such as“police,” “camera,” “witness,” “questioning,” etc.

Option keywords may be generated by control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6),based on information analyzed from the media guidance data source 718(FIG. 7). For example, control circuitry 604 may create a subject matterdatabase in storage 608. Control circuitry 604 may analyze media contentfrom the media guidance data source 718 and generate several aspects ofsubject matter such as police investigations, victim updates and courtcases. For example, control circuitry 604 may retrieve news articlesabout crimes and determine aspects of a crime case. These aspects mayencompass the type of crime, the parties affected by the crime and theaftermath. Suppose that control circuitry 604 identifies one hundrednews articles about various court cases dealing with robberies andgenerates keywords, using natural language processing, for each article.Control circuitry 604 may determine keywords that are present in allarticles such as “law,” “robber,” “lawyer,” “sentenced,” and store themin the subject matter database under the subject matter column, “courtcases.”

Control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) may set an option threshold whichrepresents the minimum amount of option keywords that need to beincluded in the second plurality of keywords. Control circuitry 604 mayretrieve the option threshold (e.g., set to 10%) from storage 608. Ifthe second plurality of keywords includes “Manhattan,” “bank,”“robbery,” “mask,” “gun,” “camera,” and “fingerprints,” controlcircuitry 604 may determine that “camera” is an option keyword thataccounts for approximately 14% of the second plurality of keywords.Therefore, control circuitry 604 may determine that the amount of theoption keywords included in the second plurality of keywords is greaterthan the options threshold, and in response, may determine, at step1010, that the second media content object shares common subject matterwith the first media content object. If the amount is less than thelower level of the threshold or the options threshold at step 1004 andstep 1006 respectively, the process proceeds to step 1008. At step 1008,control circuitry 604 determines that the second media content objectdoes not share common subject matter with the first media contentobject.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 10 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the steps anddescriptions described in relation to FIG. 10 may be done in alternativeorders or in parallel to further the purposes of this disclosure. Forexample, each of these steps may be performed in any order or inparallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lag or increase thespeed of the system or method. Any of these steps may also be skipped oromitted from the process. Furthermore, it should be noted that any ofthe devices or equipment discussed in relation to FIGS. 6-7 could beused to perform one or more of the steps in FIG. 10.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart of illustrative steps of a process 1100 forgenerating, for display, a timeline representing identified times ofstored media content objects, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure. It should be noted that process 1100 or any step thereofcould be performed on, or provided by, any of the devices shown in FIGS.6-7. For example, process 1100 may be executed by control circuitry 604(FIG. 6) as instructed by a media guidance application implemented on auser device (e.g., user equipment devices 702, 704, and/or 706 (FIG. 7))in order to generate, for display, a timeline representing identifiedtimes of stored media content objects. In addition, one or more steps ofprocess 1100 may be incorporated into or combined with one or more stepsof any other process or embodiment (e.g., as described in relation toFIGS. 1-2, 8-10, and 12-16).

At step 1102, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) monitors the plurality ofcontent sources for a third media content object that is associated witha third plurality of keywords that includes some of the first and secondplurality of keywords. For example, control circuitry 604 may detect anadditional news story about the bank robbery from the media contentsource 716 (FIG. 7). The additional news story may be a video clip fromCNN News and may be identified as a third media content object bycontrol circuitry 604. Control circuitry 604 may extract a thirdplurality of keywords associated with the third media content object.For example, the additional news story may account for the robber beingcaught by the police. Control circuitry 604 may utilize natural languageprocessing and computer vision to extract subtitles and words on thescreen during the news report. Control circuitry 604 may thereforedetermine a third plurality of keywords including “Manhattan,” “bank,”“robbery,” “fingerprint,” “camera,” “caught,” and “charged.” It shouldbe noted that the third plurality of keywords shares several keywordswith the first and second pluralities. The only keywords unique to thethird plurality of keywords are “caught” and “charged.”

At step 1104, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) determines whether theamount of first and second pluralities of keywords included in the thirdplurality of keywords is less than the threshold. In some embodiments,control circuitry 604 may also execute process 1000 (FIG. 10) to ensurethat the third media content object shares common subject matter withthe first and/or second media content object. Control circuitry 604 maythen retrieve from storage the threshold, which may be 80%. Therefore,if the third plurality of keywords shares 80% or higher of its keywordswith the first and second pluralities of keywords, control circuitry 604may determine not to store the third media content object (e.g., thethird media content object is too similar to the first/second mediacontent object and may be the same news story). In the example given,the shared keywords in the third plurality of keywords only account forapproximately 72% of the total keywords in the third plurality.Therefore, control circuitry 604 may determine that the amount of thefirst and second pluralities of keywords included in the third pluralityof keywords is less than the threshold.

At step 1106, in response to determining that the amount of the firstand second pluralities of keywords included in the third plurality ofkeywords is less than the threshold, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6)stores the third media content object in storage 608. If the amountexceeds the threshold, the process returns to step 1102 and controlcircuitry 604 monitors for a different third media content object.

At step 1108, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) identifies release timesassociated with each of the first, second and third media contentobjects. The release time is the time at which a media content object istransmitted by the content provider and may be retrieved from the mediaguidance data source 718 (FIG. 7). For example, the release time for thenews broadcast about the bank robbery (e.g., first media content object)may be Oct. 16, 2017 at 5:00 pm. The release time for the news updateabout the robber being identified (e.g., second media content object)may be Oct. 17, 2017 at 5:00 pm. The release for the news report aboutthe robber being caught (e.g., third media content object) may be Oct.20, 2017 at 6:00 pm.

At step 1110, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) generates, for display, atimeline (e.g., presented in FIG. 3) representing the identified timesand the first, second, and third media content objects, wherein thetimeline includes indicators of types of updates associated with thefirst, second and third media content objects. The timeline may be shownas a user input interface 610 on display 612. As discussed in FIG. 3,the timeline may display buttons that initiate playback of therespective media content object in storage. The indicators may includeinformation about the release time and the type of update (e.g., policeinvestigations, court cases, victim updates, etc.).

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 11 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the steps anddescriptions described in relation to FIG. 11 may be done in alternativeorders or in parallel to further the purposes of this disclosure. Forexample, each of these steps may be performed in any order or inparallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lag or increase thespeed of the system or method. Any of these steps may also be skipped oromitted from the process. Furthermore, it should be noted that any ofthe devices or equipment discussed in relation to FIGS. 6-7 could beused to perform one or more of the steps in FIG. 11.

FIG. 12 is a flowchart of illustrative steps of a process 1200 fordetermining an update period for a selected option, in accordance withsome embodiments of the disclosure. It should be noted that process 1200or any step thereof could be performed on, or provided by, any of thedevices shown in FIGS. 6-7. For example, process 1200 may be executed bycontrol circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) as instructed by a media guidanceapplication implemented on a user device (e.g., user equipment devices702, 704, and/or 706 (FIG. 7)) in order to determine an update periodfor a selected option. In addition, one or more steps of process 1200may be incorporated into or combined with one or more steps of any otherprocess or embodiment (e.g., as described in relation to FIGS. 1-2,8-11, and 13-16).

At step 1202, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) searches a first pluralityof previous release times associated with a first set of contentcorresponding to a first aspect of subject matter. For example, thefirst aspect of the subject matter may be police investigations. Thefirst set of content may therefore include news stories about the policesearching for clues to track the bank robber. The first plurality ofprevious release times may be associated with each respective story(e.g., the first news story has a first release time, the second newsstory has a second release time, etc.). Control circuitry 604 may referto the media guidance data source 716 (FIG. 7) to retrieve metadata,such as release times, of media content objects. Furthermore, controlcircuitry 604 may update in storage 608, the subject matter database,whenever control circuitry 604 identifies a media content object. Forexample, under a “police investigations” section of the subject matterdatabase, control circuitry 604 may store release times of eachidentified media content object with common subject matter.

At step 1204, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) determines a first averageduration between each of the first plurality of previous release times.Suppose that control circuitry 604 retrieves release times of variousstories under “police investigations” in the subject matter database.Control circuitry 604 may determine that the first story has a releasetime of 9:00 pm on Monday and the second story has a release time of9:00 pm on the following Tuesday. Control circuitry 604 may determinethat there are 24 hours between the two release times and determine theamount of time between the second release time and a third release time.This process may continue until all media content objects under “policeinvestigations” are accounted for in the subject matter database.Control circuitry 604 may then determine the average duration betweenall release times.

At step 1206, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) stores the first averageduration, as a first value for a first update period associated with thefirst aspect of subject matter. For example, control circuitry 604 maystore 24 hours as the update period for content associated with policeinvestigations if the average duration between release times is 24hours. This represents the amount of time control circuitry 604 waitsbefore monitoring for additional media content objects. It should benoted that if control circuitry 604 fails to find an additional mediacontent object that shares common subject matter with the first mediacontent object, control circuitry 604 may continue searching only untila time limit. For example, there may no longer be updates about aspecific news story. Control circuitry 604 may retrieve the time limitfrom a user profile in storage 608. The time limit may be 60 days (e.g.,set by the user). Thus, after 60 days, control circuitry 604 may stopmonitoring for additional media content objects.

At step 1208, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) searches a second pluralityof previous release times associated with a second set of contentcorresponding to a second aspect of subject matter. For example, thesecond aspect of subject matter may be “court cases.” Control circuitry604 may refer to the subject matter database and retrieve release timesof media content objects associated with “court cases.”

At step 1210, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) determines a second averageduration between each of the second plurality of previous release times.As mentioned in the previous example, control circuitry 604 may retrievethe release times found under “court cases,” and determine a secondaverage duration between the release times of the media content objects.

At step 1212, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) stores the second averageduration, as a second value for a second update period associated withthe second aspect of subject matter. For example, control circuitry 604may set the second average duration determined in the previous step asthe update period associated with the second aspect of subject matter“court cases.”

At step 1214, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) selects one of the firstand second update periods as the identified update period based on theaspect of subject matter corresponding to the selected first option. Forexample, the user may select “police investigations” as the subjectmatter in the first option. Control circuitry 604 may therefore set theupdate period to the first update period, which is the average durationbetween news updates associated with police investigations.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 12 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the steps anddescriptions described in relation to FIG. 12 may be done in alternativeorders or in parallel to further the purposes of this disclosure. Forexample, each of these steps may be performed in any order or inparallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lag or increase thespeed of the system or method. Any of these steps may also be skipped oromitted from the process. Furthermore, it should be noted that any ofthe devices or equipment discussed in relation to FIGS. 6-7 could beused to perform one or more of the steps in FIG. 12.

FIG. 13 is a flowchart of illustrative steps of a process 1300 forgenerating a media playlist and alerting the user of stored mediacontent objects, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure.It should be noted that process 1300 or any step thereof could beperformed on, or provided by, any of the devices shown in FIGS. 6-7. Forexample, process 1300 may be executed by control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6)as instructed by a media guidance application implemented on a userdevice (e.g., user equipment devices 702, 704, and/or 706 (FIG. 7)) inorder to generate a media playlist and alert the user of stored mediacontent objects. In addition, one or more steps of process 1300 may beincorporated into or combined with one or more steps of any otherprocess or embodiment (e.g., as described in relation to FIGS. 1-2,8-12, and 14-16).

At step 1302, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) determines that the amountof the first plurality of keywords included in the second plurality ofkeywords is less than the threshold. As discussed previously, inresponse to determining that the amount is less than the threshold,control circuitry 604 stores the second media content object in storage608. This signifies that the second media content object shares commonsubject matter with the first media content object and includesadditional information relating to the subject matter.

At step 1304, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) determines a type of updateassociated with the second media content object. The type of update isassociated with the options displayed to the user (e.g., policeinvestigations, court cases, victim updates, etc.) For example, controlcircuitry 604 (FIG. 6) may determine whether the amount of optionkeywords included in the second plurality of keywords is greater than anoptions threshold. As discussed previously, option keywords arepredetermined by control circuitry 604 and are associated with the userselected options. For example, the topic of police investigations may beassociated with option keywords such as “police,” “camera,” “witness,”“questioning,” etc. If the amount of option keywords exceeds the optionsthreshold, control circuitry 604 may determine the type of updateassociated with the second media content object (e.g., type of update isdetermined to be police investigations because the amount of keywordsassociated with police investigations is greater than the optionsthreshold).

At step 1306, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) selects an alert type basedon the type of update. For example, the type of update, policeinvestigations, may be associated with a specific alert type. Controlcircuitry 604 may retrieve the alert type from the subject matterdatabase in storage 608. Alert types may include pop-up notifications ondisplay 612, calendar events in the user profile, or an accessible userinput interface 610 that lists all media content objects associated witha particular subject matter. For example, control circuitry 604 maygenerate an overlay on display 612 informing the user that a secondmedia content object has been detected. Control circuitry 604 may alsoretrieve a user profile of the user that includes the user's viewinghistory and calendar. Control circuitry 604 may include a notificationin the user's calendar. This process is discussed further in thedescription of FIG. 15.

At step 1308, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) generates an alert usingthe alert type in response to storing the second media content object.Suppose that the type of update is police investigations. Controlcircuitry 604 may retrieve, from the subject matter database in storage608, an alert type associated with police investigations. Suppose thatthe alert type is a pop-up notification. Control circuitry 604 maygenerate the notification on display 612.

At step 1310, Control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) generates a media playlistby combining the first media content object and the second media contentobject. For example, control circuitry 604 may link the notificationwith the media playlist and may receive a user request to access themedia playlist upon clicking the notification (e.g., via I/O Path 602).The media playlist may feature a merged media content object of thefirst and second media content object. The media playlist may also keepthe media content objects separate, but in an order based on releasetime.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 13 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the steps anddescriptions described in relation to FIG. 13 may be done in alternativeorders or in parallel to further the purposes of this disclosure. Forexample, each of these steps may be performed in any order or inparallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lag or increase thespeed of the system or method. Any of these steps may also be skipped oromitted from the process. Furthermore, it should be noted that any ofthe devices or equipment discussed in relation to FIGS. 6-7 could beused to perform one or more of the steps in FIG. 13.

FIG. 14 is a flowchart of illustrative steps of a process 1400 forsearching for media content objects that have release times that precedethe time of the first user selection, in accordance with someembodiments of the disclosure. It should be noted that process 1400 orany step thereof could be performed on, or provided by, any of thedevices shown in FIGS. 6-7. For example, process 1400 may be executed bycontrol circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) as instructed by a media guidanceapplication implemented on a user device (e.g., user equipment devices702, 704, and/or 706 (FIG. 7)) in order to search for media contentobjects that have release times that precede the time of the first userselection. In addition, one or more steps of process 1400 may beincorporated into or combined with one or more steps of any otherprocess or embodiment (e.g., as described in relation to FIGS. 1-2,8-13, and 15-16).

At step 1402, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) receives, as the first userselection, input from a user, tagging a news story of interest.Continuing from the previous example, suppose that the user is viewing anews report on CNN News about a bank robbery in New York City. Controlcircuitry 604 may allow the user to tag (i.e., select) the story througha user input interface 610 on display 612. Based on his/her interest,the user may end up tagging the story. Control circuitry 604 may receivea selection associated with the first media content object (e.g., videoclip of the news story) via I/O Path 602.

At step 1404, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) generates keywordsassociated with the news story. Control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) maygenerate keywords by retrieving, from the media guidance data source 718(FIG. 7), metadata associated with the media content object. Controlcircuitry 604 may extract subtitles from the media content object.Control circuitry 604 may also utilize natural language processing andspeech recognition to determine text from audio associated with themedia content object.

At step 1406, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) categorizes the keywordsinto a plurality of categories. For example, control circuitry 604 maycategorize the keywords using data analytics processing (e.g.,clustering, classification), to determine a plurality of categories. Theplurality of categories represents recurring themes or concepts. In someembodiments, control circuitry 604 may transcribe the news report andanalyze all words to generate the plurality of categories. Suppose thatone of the categories in the plurality of categories is “court cases.”Keywords such as “judge,” “trial,” and “law” may be categorized under“court cases” because the data analytics process, clustering, mayassociate the keywords with “court cases” (e.g., since “judge,” “trial,”and “law” may be mentioned frequently alongside “court” in a newsreport).

At step 1408, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) compares each of theplurality of categories to the aspect of subject matter corresponding tothe first option. For example, the plurality of categories may include“police investigations,” “court cases” and “victim updates.” Controlcircuitry 604 may determine that the first aspect of subject matter,police investigation, corresponds to the first category “policeinvestigations.” In some embodiments, the plurality of categories maynot match exactly with the aspects of subject matter. For example, theclustering algorithm may group keywords associated with policeinvestigations under “investigation.” In these cases, control circuitry604 may determine the category that is most similar to the aspect ofsubject matter. If the plurality of categories includes “investigation,”“law,” and “banks,” control circuitry 604 may determine that “policeinvestigations” is most similar to the category “investigation” becauseof the matching word “investigation.”

At step 1410, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) identifies the firstplurality of keywords in response to determining that a categoryassociated with each of the first plurality of keywords corresponds tothe aspect of subject matter. For example, the keywords categorizedunder the first category in the plurality of categories “investigations”may include “police,” “robber,” “clues,” “questioning,” and “witnesses.”Because the category is associated with the first aspect of subjectmatter “police investigations,” which corresponds to the first option,control circuitry 604 may identify the keywords associated with thefirst category as the first plurality of keywords.

At step 1412, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) searches the plurality ofcontent sources for media content objects that include less than all ofthe first plurality of keywords and that are associated with a releasetime that precedes the first time. The release time is the time a mediacontent object is transmitted by a content provider. For example, thecontent source may be CNN. The media content object may be a storysegment on CNN News which is transmitted on CNN. Suppose that the firsttime control circuitry 604 receives a user selection of a first mediacontent object is on Monday, Oct. 9, 2017. Control circuitry 604 maysearch for media content objects with release times before the firsttime on the Internet or databases of stored media from the contentprovider. For example, control circuitry 604 may retrieve previous newsstories related to the bank robbery from the CNN News website (e.g.,news story about suspicious activities near the bank a few days beforethe robbery). Accordingly, each media content object with a release timethat precedes the first time will be analyzed by control circuitry 604(e.g., extract keywords, determine that the media content object sharescommon subject matter with the first media content object). Inparticular, control circuitry 604 may determine whether the keywordsassociated with the identified media content object includes an amountof the first plurality of keywords less than the threshold.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 14 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the steps anddescriptions described in relation to FIG. 14 may be done in alternativeorders or in parallel to further the purposes of this disclosure. Forexample, each of these steps may be performed in any order or inparallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lag or increase thespeed of the system or method. Any of these steps may also be skipped oromitted from the process. Furthermore, it should be noted that any ofthe devices or equipment discussed in relation to FIGS. 6-7 could beused to perform one or more of the steps in FIG. 14.

FIG. 15 is a flowchart of illustrative steps of a process 1500 fordelaying notifying the user about the second media content object untilthe end time of a current season, in accordance with some embodiments ofthe disclosure. It should be noted that process 1500 or any step thereofcould be performed on, or provided by, any of the devices shown in FIGS.6-7. For example, process 1500 may be executed by control circuitry 604(FIG. 6) as instructed by a media guidance application implemented on auser device (e.g., user equipment devices 702, 704, and/or 706 (FIG. 7))in order to delay notifying the user about the second media contentobject until the end time of a current season. In addition, one or moresteps of process 1500 may be incorporated into or combined with one ormore steps of any other process or embodiment (e.g., as described inrelation to FIGS. 1-2, 8-14, and 16).

At step 1502, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) determines a current seasonof a show in which the user has expressed interest. Control circuitry604 may retrieve the user profile in storage 608 which may include theuser's viewing history. Suppose that the user watches “Game of Thrones.”Control circuitry 604 may determine that the user is watching episodesfrom season 8, the current season, from the viewing history.

At step 1504, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) determines an end time ofthe current season. For example, control circuitry 604 may retrievemetadata associated with each episode that indicates the total number ofepisodes in a season (e.g., episode 8 of 10). If the show is transmittedweekly, control circuitry 604 may determine that two episodes remain tobe transmitted and therefore the season will end in two weeks. Controlcircuitry 604 may also pull information, such as the broadcast scheduleof the current season, from the Internet (e.g., IMDB episode list). Thesame process can be applied to sports season (e.g., schedule of games).

At step 1506, based on the retrieved information, control circuitry 604(FIG. 6) determines whether the end time of the current season haspassed. For example, control circuitry 604 may determine that thecurrent date is Oct. 1, 2017 and the season's end time was Sep. 15,2017.

At step 1508, in response to determining that the end time of thecurrent season has not passed, control circuitry 604 delays notifyingthe user about the second media content object until the end time of thecurrent season. For example, the end time of the current season may betwo weeks away. In response, control circuitry 604 may delay notifyingthe user until two weeks have passed. In response to determining thatthe end time of the current season has passed, control circuitry 604notifies the user about the second media content object at step 1510. Asmentioned previously (e.g., FIG. 13 description), the notificationgenerated by control circuitry 604 may be based on an alert typeassociated with the type of update (e.g., police investigations).

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 15 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the steps anddescriptions described in relation to FIG. 15 may be done in alternativeorders or in parallel to further the purposes of this disclosure. Forexample, each of these steps may be performed in any order or inparallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lag or increase thespeed of the system or method. Any of these steps may also be skipped oromitted from the process. Furthermore, it should be noted that any ofthe devices or equipment discussed in relation to FIGS. 6-7 could beused to perform one or more of the steps in FIG. 15.

FIG. 16 is a flowchart of illustrative steps of a process 1600 forgenerating a recommendation of a media asset associated with acharacteristic of the first media content object, in accordance withsome embodiments of the disclosure. It should be noted that process 1600or any step thereof could be performed on, or provided by, any of thedevices shown in FIGS. 6-7. For example, process 1600 may be executed bycontrol circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) as instructed by a media guidanceapplication implemented on a user device (e.g., user equipment devices702, 704, and/or 706 (FIG. 7)) in order to generate a recommendation ofa media asset associated with a characteristic of the first mediacontent object. In addition, one or more steps of process 1600 may beincorporated into or combined with one or more steps of any otherprocess or embodiment (e.g., as described in relation to FIGS. 1-2 and8-15).

At step 1602, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) receives a first userselection of a first media content object. Continuing from the previousexample, suppose that the user is viewing a news report on CNN Newsabout a bank robbery in New York City. Control circuitry 604 may allowthe user to tag (i.e., select) the story through a user input interface610 on display 612. Based on his/her interest, the user may end uptagging the story. Control circuitry 604 may receive a selectionassociated with the first media content object (e.g., video clip of thenews story) via I/O Path 602.

At step 1604, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) determines a characteristicof the first media content object. For example, control circuitry 604may extract metadata from the first media content object, or retrievethe metadata from the media guidance data source 718 (FIG. 7). Themetadata may include information about the first media content object,such as time of transmission, title, media type, description, contentprovider, and genre. Control circuitry 604 may choose one of theseinformation types and identify the information type as a characteristic.For example, the first media content object may be a news update about asports team. Therefore, control circuitry 604 may retrieve the genre anddescription from the metadata (e.g., sports news about New York Yankees)and determine a characteristic of the first media content object such as“sports news” or “New York Yankees.”

At step 1606, control circuitry 604 (FIG. 6) generates a recommendationof a media asset associated with the characteristic. Suppose that thecharacteristic determined by control circuitry 604 is the description“New York Yankees.” Control circuitry 604 may monitor the media contentsource 716 (FIG. 7) for content associated with the “New York Yankees”by analyzing the metadata associated with any detected media content fordescriptions mentioning “New York Yankees.” Thus, if the user selected amedia content object about a sports news story involving the New YorkYankees, control circuitry 604 may recommend a baseball match featuringthe New York Yankees.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 16 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the steps anddescriptions described in relation to FIG. 16 may be done in alternativeorders or in parallel to further the purposes of this disclosure. Forexample, each of these steps may be performed in any order or inparallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lag or increase thespeed of the system or method. Any of these steps may also be skipped oromitted from the process. Furthermore, it should be noted that any ofthe devices or equipment discussed in relation to FIGS. 6-7 could beused to perform one or more of the steps in FIG. 16.

The processes discussed above are intended to be illustrative and notlimiting. One skilled in the art would appreciate that the steps of theprocesses discussed herein may be omitted, modified, combined, and/orrearranged, and any additional steps may be performed without departingfrom the scope of the invention. More generally, the above disclosure ismeant to be exemplary and not limiting. Only the claims that follow aremeant to set bounds as to what the present invention includes.Furthermore, it should be noted that the features and limitationsdescribed in any one embodiment may be applied to any other embodimentherein, and flowcharts or examples relating to one embodiment may becombined with any other embodiment in a suitable manner, done indifferent orders, or done in parallel. In addition, the systems andmethods described herein may be performed in real time. It should alsobe noted that the systems and/or methods described above may be appliedto, or used in accordance with, other systems and/or methods.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for aggregating related media content, the method comprising: receiving a first user selection of a first media content object and a first option representing a type of information update related to the first media content object; extracting a first plurality of keywords associated with the first media content object and that corresponds to the type of information update; measuring a time period since a release time of the first media content object; in response to determining that the time period exceeds an update period associated with the type of information, monitoring a plurality of content sources for a second media content object that is associated with a second plurality of keywords that includes some of the first plurality of keywords; and in response to determining that an amount of the first plurality of keywords included in the second plurality of keywords is less than a threshold, storing the second media content object, wherein the threshold represents media content objects with common subject matter updated with new information.
 2. The method of claim 1 further comprising: receiving, as the first user selection, input from a user tagging a news story of interest; generating keywords associated with the news story; categorizing the keywords into a plurality of categories; comparing each of the plurality of categories to e an aspect of subject matter corresponding to the first option; and identifying the first plurality of keywords in response to determining that a category associated with each of the first plurality of keywords corresponds to the aspect of subject matter.
 3. The method of claim 1 further comprising: in response to determining that the amount of the first plurality of keywords included in the second plurality of keywords is less than the threshold, determining a type of update associated with the second media content object; selecting an alert type based on the type of update; and generating an alert using the alert type in response to storing the second media content obj ect.
 4. The method of claim 1 further comprising: monitoring the plurality of content sources for a third media content object that is associated with a third plurality of keywords that includes some of the first and second plurality of keywords; and in response to determining that an amount of the first and second plurality of keywords included in the third plurality of keywords is less than the threshold, storing the third media content object; identifying times associated with each of the first, second and third media content objects; and generating, for display, a timeline representing the identified times and the first, second, and third media content objects, wherein the timeline includes indicators of types of updates associated with the first, second and third media content objects.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein the first user selection is received at a first time, further comprising: searching the plurality of content sources for media content objects that include less than all of the first plurality of keywords and that are associated with a release time that precedes the first time.
 6. The method of claim 1 further comprising: determining a characteristic of the first media content object; and generating recommendation of media asset associated with the characteristic.
 7. The method of claim 1 further comprising generating a media playlist by combining the first media content object and the second media content object.
 8. The method of claim 1 further comprising: determining a current season of a show in which the user has expressed interest; determining an end time of the current season; and delaying notifying the user about the second media content object until the end time of the current season.
 9. The method of claim 1, wherein the first media content object is a news story about a criminal investigation, wherein the first option is associated with a first aspect of subject matter, wherein a second option of the plurality of options is associated with a second aspect of subject matter, wherein the first aspect of subject matter represents content related to a victim of the criminal investigation, and the second aspect of subject matter represents content related to a trial of a suspect of the criminal investigation.
 10. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the update period comprises: searching a first plurality of previous release times associated with a first set of content corresponding to a first aspect of subject matter; determining a first average duration between each of the first plurality of previous release times; storing, as a first value for a first update period associated with the first aspect of subject matter, the first duration; searching a second plurality of previous release times associated with a second set of content corresponding to a second aspect of subject matter; determining a second average duration between each of the second plurality of previous release times; storing, as a second value for a second update period associated with the second aspect of subject matter, the second duration; and selecting one of the first and second update periods as the identified update period based on the aspect of subject matter corresponding to the selected first option.
 11. A system for aggregating related media content, the system comprising: control circuitry configured to: receive a first user selection of a first media content object and an option representing a type of information update related to the first media content object; extract, a first plurality of keywords associated with the first media content object and that corresponds to the type of information update; measure a time period since a release time of the first media content object; in response to determining that the time period exceeds an update period associated with the type of information, monitor a plurality of content sources for a second media content object that is associated with a second plurality of keywords that includes some of the first plurality of keywords; and in response to determining that an amount of the first plurality of keywords included in the second plurality of keywords is less than a threshold, store the second media content object, wherein the threshold represents media content objects with common subject matter updated with new information.
 12. The system of claim 11, wherein the control circuitry is further configured to: receive, as the first user selection, input from a user tagging a news story of interest; generate keywords associated with the news story; categorize the keywords into a plurality of categories; compare each of the plurality of categories to an aspect of subject matter corresponding to the first option; and identify the first plurality of keywords in response to determining that a category associated with each of the first plurality of keywords corresponds to the aspect of subject matter.
 13. The system of claim 11, wherein the control circuitry is further configured to: in response to determining that the amount of the first plurality of keywords included in the second plurality of keywords is less than the threshold, determine a type of update associated with the second media content object; select an alert type based on the type of update; and generate an alert using the alert type in response to storing the second media content object.
 14. The system of claim 11, wherein the control circuitry is further configured to: monitor the plurality of content sources for a third media content object that is associated with a third plurality of keywords that includes some of the first and second plurality of keywords; and in response to determining that an amount of the first and second plurality of keywords included in the third plurality of keywords is less than the threshold, store the third media content object; identify times associated with each of the first, second and third media content objects; and generate, for display, a timeline representing the identified times and the first, second, and third media content objects, wherein the timeline includes indicators of types of updates associated with the first, second and third media content objects.
 15. The system of claim 11, wherein the first user selection is received at a first time, and wherein the control circuitry is further configured to: search the plurality of content sources for media content objects that include less than all of the first plurality of keywords and that are associated with a release time that precedes the first time.
 16. The system of claim 11, wherein the control circuitry is further configured to: determine a characteristic of the first media content object; and generate recommendation of media asset associated with the characteristic.
 17. The system of claim 11, wherein the control circuitry is further configured to generate a media playlist by combining the first media content object and the second media content object.
 18. The system of claim 11, wherein the control circuitry is further configured to: determine a current season of a show in which the user has expressed interest; determine an end time of the current season; and delay notifying the user about the second media content object until the end time of the current season.
 19. The system of claim 11, wherein the first media content object is a news story about a criminal investigation, wherein the first option is associated with a first aspect of subject matter, wherein a second option of the plurality of options is associated with a second aspect of subject matter, wherein the first aspect of subject matter represents content related to a victim of the criminal investigation, and the second aspect of subject matter represents content related to a trial of a suspect of the criminal investigation.
 20. The system of claim 11, wherein the control circuitry is configured to identify the update period by: searching a first plurality of previous release times associated with a first set of content corresponding to a first aspect of subject matter; determining a first average duration between each of the first plurality of previous release times; storing, as a first value for a first update period associated with the first aspect of subject matter, the first duration; searching a second plurality of previous release times associated with a second set of content corresponding to a second aspect of subject matter; determining a second average duration between each of the second plurality of previous release times; storing, as a second value for a second update period associated with the second aspect of subject matter, the second duration; and selecting one of the first and second update periods as the identified update period based on the aspect of subject matter corresponding to the selected first option. 